Though War Rise: Part Two
by ljkwriting4life
Summary: Follow-on from Though War Rise: Part One. Post-colonisation and finally reunited, Scully, Mulder, Skinner and Gibson face new challenges in their search for safety, and the risk is very real that they may become separated once again. This is the second part of my first AU post-col story, written in 2008, with MSR, DRR, Skinner/Other, Gibson/Other.
1. Chapter 1

Though War Rise: Part Two

By: Leese (ljkwriting4life)

Notes: Follow-on from Though War Rise: Part One. Post-colonisation and finally reunited, Scully, Mulder, Skinner and Gibson face new challenges in their search for safety, and the risk is very real that they may become separated once again. This is the second part of my first AU post-col story, written in 2008, with MSR, DRR, Skinner/Other, Gibson/Other.

One

 _The coast of Mexico - 2006_

Fox Mulder did not know what the day or time was when he sat down in the sand. It was early afternoon. The hot sun above him was masked by thick clouds, and for the first time in a very long time, he could see the ocean. Mulder knew it was sometime in the new year, the first New Year after 'they' had come. He and his friends had been walking for more than two months just to get to their latest rest spot. It was probably meant to be early spring, he figured, but he was still sweating as though it was mid-summer. The desert had a funny way of not really feeling the seasons except in the night.

But they were nearing the coast now, he reassured himself with a happy smile.

The woman he sat beside leaned her head onto his bicep and he glanced down at her, doing his best not to be concerned by her recently subdued attitude. Her orange hair had grown down to her shoulders and Mulder noticed that it had more of a wave in it brought on by the increased humidity. Her blue eyes were open and the colour in them mirrored the blue he could see in the distance. She sighed, relaxing against him as he wrapped one of his arms low around her hips.

"What's the matter?" he asked gently. It was not an attack on her quietness but he was curious. She had been seeking more and more time away from the group, and this time had wandered a couple of hundred metres away to take in the view. He was not concerned about her mental health, but he did wish that she would talk to him.

"I was just looking at the sea," she mumbled, shutting her eyes and shifting slightly closer in the sand until their hips and thighs were touching. "Thinking about dad, and the times I got to go on his big Navy ships. Fishing. Sailing. All those things I haven't done since I was a kid."

"You might be able to do them again soon," he assured her. She scoffed. "You never know. Just because where we've come from everything's been taken, check out the view. There are trees out there, I'm sure of it. There has to be."

"At least there's water," she agreed. "Though I'm not sure it would be safe. Who knows what chemical alterations have occurred to change the environment we left behind, let alone the one we're walking into. It may look familiar and pretty, but we may find ourselves longing to be back in the desert yet."

"You're afraid," he whispered, suddenly hearing the tremor in her voice. He almost couldn't believe it, though he knew he should not act so surprised. They were all nervous about what they would find, but Mulder had finally picked the difference between Scully and the rest of them. Their hope outweighed their nerves most of the time. Though Scully was a natural optimist, she was also too pragmatic to let something like hope mask the potential realities of what they were walking into.

"Yes," she hissed softly beside him. It was an admission she would only ever make to him.

"We have no choice," he told her. "We're going to run out of food and water."

"I know," she promised. "I won't fight it. I've just been feeling nostalgic with the change in the atmosphere; the clouds and the moisture and water." Mulder nodded, rubbing his cheek, scruffy with a short brown beard. He could have shaved every day with John, Skinner and Gibson but most of the time he couldn't be bothered and Scully didn't mind. Plus, every time he went a while without shaving and then did, he always got a long kiss from her. So really she was giving him incentive to keep up with the lazy-assed routine he had developed.

He chuckled at his reasoning and she pulled away from his body to look up at him curiously. He grinned and her and shrugged in response to her silent question.

"Nothing," he added when she narrowed her eyes and playfully glared. "I was just thinking about skinny dipping," he lied. Close enough, really, considering where his mind had gone after thinking about that kiss.

"Ahuh," Scully drawled sceptically. "How much further, do you think?" she asked, changing the topic of conversation before both their minds drifted into the proverbial gutter.

"Gibson isn't sure," Mulder answered. "For a little dude who can read minds he's not very good."

"I HEARD THAT!" Gibson shouted from a hundred metres away, his voice carrying across the sparse landscape. Mulder chuckled and Scully smirked. They enjoyed their teasing, and she enjoyed watching them and hearing them. It made everything seem normal when it wasn't. It made her feel young.

"Anyway," Mulder continued. "He thinks just down there, but he was telling us just before that there's something in the way blocking him. Like an energy field perhaps. He can't get his mind past it, or more correctly the minds inside can't get out to him."

"That concerns me," Scully mumbled thoughtfully. Mulder nodded. Him too. It was concerning everyone, but inland was not an option. They had tried that already, and the terrain was too rough to journey with a small baby and a large amount of rations still remaining. Shannon, their accompanying supersoldier, had always been reluctant to use the coastal route but without being able to tell them expressly why she had been out-voted.

Now Mulder was thinking they might have been better off abseiling down that cliff after all.

"Shannon was always reluctant to come here," Scully sighed. "She brought us because she felt we needed to be here, but she told me once she wasn't sure what they would make her do here. I think there might be supersoldiers here, Mulder."

"Probably," he agreed. "They all would have survived, however many there are now. Shannon thinks we can reach it by tomorrow night."

"So we'll be camping one last time," she whispered. Mulder nodded, watching her frown and bite her bottom lip. She reached out with one hand and wrapped her arm around his bent-up knee at her side. Mulder shivered as she stroked under his kneecap through his loose slacks. "Maybe we can find some quiet time tonight then," she added. He nodded, his physical reaction to her enough of an answer.

'Quiet time' was a pretty useless code considering they had spent the better part of a year with a mind reader in his early twenties who, thanks to his talents, was more than aware of every aspect of humanity. But it was not just Gibson they needed to be discreet around. Mulder knew the rest of his friends knew exactly what happened when he and Scully disappeared into the dark some nights. They were the only two who did. But hell, they always came back and had the decency to pretend nothing had happened. And it wasn't 'every' night, although sometimes it thankfully felt like it. They always slept a lot better.

He giggled again and Scully elbowed him firmly, laughing at his childish, mischievous laugh.

xxx 

"Sounds like he cheered her up," Sarah announced from her position in the sand between Gibson and her uncle, Walter Skinner. Sarah, who had been blinded during the invasion, was not a witness to the expression on Gibson's face. Skinner knew that expression. It was mortified control with a healthy dose of sheer embarrassment. He had a feeling Mulder and Scully were not thinking about the weather.

Skinner had an enormous amount of respect for the way Gibson simply cleared his throat and smiled kindly at the young woman beside him, just a few years his senior.

"Dana's just nervous," he assured Sarah. "It will probably be our last night here tonight."

"Seems like it's taken forever," she replied with wide, wise, brown but unseeing eyes. They were directed towards him but not focussed on his face. Her sunglasses were perched on top of her wavy, blonde hair. They did not make any practical difference but Scully made them all wear hats, sunglasses and sunscreen whenever possible. She was obsessed with their health as their doctor and their friend, and just because Sarah could not tell the difference between wearing them and not wearing them, it didn't mean the sun wasn't still causing other sorts of damage.

Gibson sighed when he realised he had sounded just like Scully in that thought. His friends had set up camp inside his head, and with no other voices to crowd them out had made themselves quite at home. He knew them so well he could almost anticipate what they would think, and he could remember their thoughts and words for a lot longer. After a while he had noticed that he could also switch off a lot more easily. Their thoughts were so familiar to him they just drifted around in his head and were much less of an intrusion than they might have been had he been surrounded by a thousand others.

"You know I've enjoyed it out here," he announced, smiling at Skinner. "We've had a really good run considering."

"I'm just glad nobody's gotten violently ill," Skinner agreed, glancing over his shoulder to where Monica was sitting against the raft breastfeeding Nicky. John and Shannon were a few extra metres away, chatting. "I'll be back," Skinner promised, getting up to go and join the rest of his friends. Gibson smiled as, instead of going to John and Shannon, who were talking about their days in the army together, he chose to sit beside Monica and keep her company while Nicky had his lunch.

They were all supremely attached to that baby, Gibson knew. Thankfully Monica was healthy and so was he, but Gibson knew how close an eye Scully kept on them both. Just in case.

"Are you nervous that you can't hear past a certain point anymore?" Sarah asked, distracting him.

Gibson hummed thoughtfully. He and Sarah had become pretty good friends, which was strange for Gibson because he had never really had friends; certainly not female friends in his own age bracket. He did not have the height or the attractive features that other men did, and even though Mulder insisted when he was in his early twenties he looked like a gangly dork, somehow Gibson knew Mulder still would have been a fair degree more handsome than himself. Still, Sarah didn't really know what he looked like, and though he knew sometimes she thought about him, he also knew that if she could see, he was the last person she ever would have approached. Besides, they were buddies so it didn't really matter.

Although, if Gibson was completely honest with himself, she was very pretty, and he liked when she held onto his elbow as they walked. He liked that she thought about him.

"I don't know," he answered. "I think supersoldiers police these settlements. That's what I was told would happen. But I don't know what it's like on the inside because of whatever's around the area."

"Will they let you in?" Sarah asked.

"I don't know," he answered. "I won't know until I'm closer."

"So you don't think they'll kill us on the spot then?" she asked. He shook his head and covered her nearby hand with his.

"I don't think so," he promised as best he could. "At the very least, you are not the target in this group. Shannon and I are the ones who would be in trouble, if at all."

"Because Shannon betrayed them, right?" Sarah asked. "She went AWOL to help us?"

"Pretty much," he agreed. "We are both threats because we have the power to stand up to them, but what I hope they realise is that we really do not have much power on our own. I didn't think the settlements would be this well guarded, to be honest."

"Maybe it's not just a settlement," she whispered. Gibson shrugged.

"I think you'll be safe," he repeated. "But I can't make any promises."

"I know," she sighed. "So are we going to stay here until dark now?"

"I don't think anybody wants to move yet," he mumbled, cautious. They were all nervous. "We have to leave the raft behind here," he told her. "This afternoon we should reorganise all our stuff and repack so we're ready for the hike tomorrow." Sarah nodded. She was still only carrying a small daypack and her cane. Nobody sought to burden her wavering balance with a heavy pack, but thanks to the large backpacks the rest of them had at their disposal forcing her to have to carry more weight had never been an issue. "Would you like something to eat?" he asked politely, hearing her stomach grumble. She chuckled, nodding.

xxx 

Gibson lay awake in his sleeping bag that night, trying to focus on the stars. He loved Mulder and Scully, he really did, and he understood how deeply they felt for each other, but it was incredibly hard to sleep when they were a few hundred metres away in the dark having sex and giving each other back rubs that eased away the tension and bruises from carrying their large bags. Scully's bag was as big as Mulder's, and she was half his size, but she had never complained and Gibson knew why. Apparently Mulder gave very good back rubs.

He just really wished he had a TV he could sit in front of and focus on. He missed watching mindless cartoons as a kid. He sat up in his sleeping bag and shook his head as though that would shake their thoughts away. It didn't work, but on nights like these he had to try.

"Gibson, are you all right?" Monica hissed. He looked up, surprised. He had been so focussed on Mulder and Scully he had not even realised she had been awake and sitting up just a few metres from him, watching Nicky sleep on his father's chest. She got out of her sleeping bag fully clothed and jogged to him, plonking down in the sand and grinning. "Bad dream?" she asked. He rolled his eyes.

"No," he whispered. "Have you noticed we're missing the happy campers?"

"Yeah," she chuckled. "Where are they?" He pointed vaguely behind him and sighed again.

"I don't understand it," he admitted. "You and John weren't always running off when we were going from Texas to Virginia to look for Scully, even though I know sometimes you wanted to."

"Then you know why we didn't," she pointed out gently. "I was sick, Mulder was upset, and John's never been a big fan of doing it in the outdoors." Gibson chuckled at her joke. "We didn't want to make you uncomfortable."

"Well thanks, but they're doing a pretty good job of making up for that consideration. I was okay with it when they got back together at the house, but...I guess I never expected it to keep going. I guess I just never thought Scully was this unconventional either."

"It's not really so unconventional though," Monica reasoned. "Plus, I think Mulder's pretty persuasive." Gibson scoffed. That was an understatement.

"What's all the chatter?" Skinner asked as he propped himself up in his bag. Monica pointed to the expanse of sand beside him, the missing sleeping bags. He groaned and collapsed back down. "Jesus Christ," he groaned. "Gibson, have you thought about maybe saying something to them?"

"What, and make them all uncomfortable?" he asked. "And who says they're not uncomfortable already anyway? Wouldn't you be? I've got to at least pretend to afford them some privacy. I'm used to it. I just can't sleep, but there's no reason for you all to sit up."

"I think we're all having trouble sleeping," John mumbled from further away, his voice low and soft so as not to wake his son, cradled to his chest in a white jumpsuit. Gibson groaned.

"Now see," he declared. "I didn't even know you all were awake. Go back to sleep."

"You want me to go find them?" Shannon asked. She had never been asleep, but had been lying down between Skinner and Sarah.

"No!" Gibson exclaimed, fiercely protective thanks to the emotional connection he had to the couple not far away. Shannon and Skinner chuckled as Monica coughed to hide her laugh.

"Okay," Skinner announced in a hiss. "Let's all 'pretend' to go back to sleep. Gibson, if 'you' need to take a walk, off you go." Gibson growled at him and lay back down in his sleeping bag as Monica returned to hers. She whispered something Gibson preferred not to hear in John's ear and kissed him goodnight. Gibson was already way into sensory overload.

So much so that ten minutes later he did not hear them coming until he saw them.

Party of seven, he made himself believe. We are a party of seven. Seven, seven, seven.

xxx 

"Everybody up!" the man ordered. He was one of five, and as Gibson reluctantly stood and reached for Sarah to help her he noticed how muscular and tall they all were. They were supersoldiers, but they were different to Shannon. Gibson had heard about them. They were the later 'design'. They felt nothing. Compared to them, Shannon was just another human.

Gibson knew the camp carried no magnetite because of Shannon's presence and the fact it would kill her. They had nothing with which to defend themselves against the small army that had found them in the sand.

Gibson and Shannon silently positioned themselves in front of the people behind them. Skinner took Sarah from Gibson and pulled her back, and John had handed Nicholas to Monica. Nicky had woken up thanks to the sudden light and was fussing, but he had not yet started to scream. The whole ambush had happened fast and without warning.

Without warning, John realised. Gibson had not said a word. Hadn't he known?

"How many are you?" one of the men asked. Gibson took a small step forward to signal that he was the group's leader.

"Seven, including the baby," he answered firmly. He hoped nobody behind him looked too surprised. "We're no threat," he continued. "We were told there was a place of safety here."

"Oh, really," the same man taunted, taking a swaggering step towards Gibson. Gibson held his ground and stared up into the man's unfeeling brown eyes. They were not clones of one another, but they looked similar enough to perhaps be related. Gibson was unsurprised.

"Yes," he replied.

"And who told you that?"

"I did," Shannon announced, stepping up to stand once more directly beside Gibson. "Shannon McMahon."

"Am I meant to know that name?"

"Maybe," she replied, dryly coy. The man closest to her pulled out his gun and flashed it across her face. She did not cry out. She was forced to turn her head upon impact but righted herself quickly. It was a blow that would have knocked a woman like Scully onto her hands and knees, but Shannon had not even shifted her feet. She offered the man a kind smile as she turned back to stare at him. "I've been hurt worse," she stated proudly.

"You're one of us?" the man asked. She nodded, raising her eyebrows in a silent challenge. "But you're a woman."

"Oh," she scoffed playfully. "Haven't you boys been told where you came from? I was one of the first. They stopped using women, didn't they? What, were we too...unpredictable?"

The man looked at her cautiously, as though she was about to fight him, but Shannon knew that was pointless. Neither of them could ever be hurt and there would never be a winner. She could also not use battle to distract the men and allow her friends to run. They had a baby and a blind girl; they couldn't run.

"What are you doing with these...things?" one of the other men asked. They even sounded the same, Gibson realised.

"They have survived the virus and wish to live in the human colony south of here," Shannon explained. "I promised to take them there. How far is it?"

"The colony is a restricted area," the man explained. "This is a research facility and you are trespassing here. The colony is further south. You cannot get there without going through us first. You need to be processed."

"Fine," Shannon agreed before consulting with the others. "They are all human, if that is your concern."

"They are not," the man directly in front of her whispered. "There is one amongst you who is not. He must be remedied." He turned to stare at Gibson. "You, boy, step forward."

"Gibson, no!" Sarah called from behind him, but Skinner hushed her.

Gibson did as he was told and stood still and unmoving as the man wrapped a strong hand around his throat. Strong, but not tight or life-threatening, and Gibson waited. He knew what the man was looking for. He could read a supersoldier's mind as well as any human or alien. He also knew he was completely human. He had the same DNA as everyone he was with; parts of it just worked when theirs didn't. There was nothing in him that changed his biology.

Gibson rolled his eyes when the supersoldier kept the hand around his neck for longer than what was needed. Finally he let go and growled, as though he believed Gibson had deceived him somehow. Gibson wanted to say something smart, but did not want to give away the fact he could read the men's minds. He had to force himself to play dumb. Maybe after examining everyone they would think they were wrong. Hopefully they would go back to where they came from and let Gibson reassess. The research facility obviously held its secrets well, for if he had known he never would have led his friends there. He still did not know what lay beyond the desert, but knowing what the men were searching for amongst them he knew it was not what he had been expecting.

"Search them all," the man before Gibson declared.

"Just stand still and be calm," Shannon added gently as a hand wrapped around her neck. It only remained there for a second. She did not understand what was going on. They obviously had some sort of power she did not, to sense something within people she could not, but she had no reason to suspect any of her friends of deceit. She had spent enough time with them to know they were all human. "What do you mean by stating one of them is not human?" she asked the man in front of herself and Gibson, who seemed to be supervising. "I can assure you they are."

"There's a signal coming from here," he replied seriously. "We must eradicate it."

"We have nothing which emits any electronic signal," she promised.

"Search the box," he ordered, ignoring her.

xxx 

Scully pulled her thin, pale green jumper back over her head as she knelt on the edge of her sleeping bag. Mulder was sitting still inside his own sleeping bag, struggling to make sure all his buttons were aligned correctly in the dark. He chuckled when she reached over impatiently and ran her fingers along the collar and down the centre, touching the buttons and testing the length of his shirt.

"You're hopeless you know," she whispered, doing up the final few by his hips and sitting back on her heels. "They're fine."

"Thanks," he replied with a wide smile, watching her pull her loose hair from the collar of her jumper. "Cold?" he asked.

"Yeah," she sighed. "A part of me can't wait until it gets hot again. I hate lugging around the extra clothes." Mulder nodded, smiling as she climbed suddenly back into his lap and rested her hands on his shoulders. "So," she whispered hesitantly, touching his rough chin and staring into his eyes. "Who knows what will happen tomorrow."

"That's right," he agreed seriously. "But we'll stick together, just like we have so far. It can't be that tough. We're safest in the group." Scully sighed, nodding as she rested her forehead to his cheek and breathed deeply. "Are you ready to go back?" he asked.

"Yes," she sighed. "You can sleep with me in my bag tonight."

"Thank you," Mulder grinned. They generally alternated use of their sleeping bags. Monica and John kept theirs zipped together, but as Mulder was one of the strongest his pack was heavy, and as Scully's was so large for her they preferred to carry theirs as separate singles. Mulder knew from experience they were pretty big singles. They could fit the length of his tall frame and were wide, but the one he was currently sitting in was hot and damp because of them, and he welcomed the invitation to share with Scully for the remainder of the night.

Scully smiled at him as she lifted her head, and she opened her mouth to say something when a bright light hit her in the face and she turned instinctively away. Mulder saw her face illuminated and pushed her quickly off his lap as they scrambled to stand.

"What the fuck?" he exclaimed, hands on his hips, ready to really get up Shannon or Gibson or whoever had decided to come and interrupt them. They had gone far enough away so that everyone besides Gibson would not have heard them, and there was nothing they could do about Gibson. So what was the big deal?

"Stop right there," a voice called, and Mulder felt his heart skip a beat as he reached behind him for Scully. She too had begun to surge forward in surprise, but he found her wrist and instead forced her behind him. She had frozen at the sound of the unfamiliar, male voice.

The torch was in their faces again, and they could do nothing except cover their eyes and wait. Busted, Mulder thought to himself, but he was without any of the humour he might have felt as an adolescent caught doing something he shouldn't have been. At least they were dressed, he reasoned, but if the nerves in his gut were to go by perhaps being dressed wouldn't matter, in the end. What was that sort of dignity worth in death? He had seen Scully perform enough autopsies to know the answer was 'not much'.

"Dana," he whispered.

"I'm here," she promised, squeezing his fingers hard, her head tucked towards his arm. The light was so bright directly in their eyes that Mulder had an instant headache and if Scully's grip on his hand was anything to go by she was either in the same pain or terrified. They had guns in their backpacks with the group, but potentially they would be useless.

Mulder could not see how many people were approaching until they were right in front of him. There were just two, but Mulder could not see their faces between the light still in their eyes. He felt a strong arm around his shoulder holding him in place, and he heard Scully scream as she was violently wrenched away from him. She hadn't wanted to let go. Mulder was torn between wanting her to fight and begging her not to, so he remained silent.

"Don't move," the man holding onto him said. "Or I'll break your neck." A hand went around Mulder's throat and he gagged but remained still. His legs were shaking. Perhaps in another time he would have fought, but Scully's scream had shaken him and he could not hear her anymore. Mulder expected to be asphyxiated but the pressure never increased, and almost as quickly as it had come it went away. Mulder recoiled as the brunt of the torchlight hit him once again directly in the face. "Well?" the man barked.

"I've got it," the other replied. "Jarvis has the concealer."

Mulder felt the gun at his neck then. He had not had a weapon pointed on him in such a way for many years, but he would never forget the way the cold, circular barrel felt against his skin. It was probably a human gun, he determined. But perhaps it was more. He couldn't know.

"Move," the man drawled in a deeply sinister tone, shoving Mulder in the back and pushing him forward. As they began walking, Mulder heard Scully behind him and felt relief at the realisation she was alive. She was being pushed forward as well. Maybe she had been pushed to the ground or gagged and that was why he hadn't heard her. Maybe she had been stunned into silence. He knew how that felt.

xxx 

"They found them," Gibson stated, but not until he saw the torch returning, not until it was obvious to everyone else. It took only a few minutes for Mulder and Scully to be returned to the group, and they were both forced to their knees in the sand. The man with the gun remained behind them. Mulder was finally able to turn his head to look at Scully, and he saw that she was gagged; a thick twist of material had been tied around her mouth so tightly she was making soft choking noises as her tongue struggled with the material and the odd displacement of her jaw.

"It's okay," he whispered when her eyes turned to his. They were wide, and looked dark in the dim light that illuminated them; the torch pointing back to the rest of the group. Mulder knew the look in her eyes. He had seen it so many times before. Tooms, Pfaster, Padgett. His body shook at the desperate, primal fear for her life which he saw in her expression.

Scully was completely aware of the reality of their situation and it frightened her. Nobody else but her was gagged. None of the others were on their knees. She could not speak and her hands were clasped behind her back even though she was not bound there. A tear slipped out of one of her eyes as she stared at Mulder. Around them, it had gone completely silent.

"It's going to be okay," he whispered again, his voice cracking as she released another tear.

Mulder knew he should be paying more attention to what was happening around them, but he wasn't sure he wanted to. If they were going to be killed he did not need to know. He just needed to know the rest would be okay. That somehow in his death and Scully's death they would at least be ensuring their friends safe passage. Were they a sacrifice, was that it? But since when did men who appeared to be supersoldiers make sacrifices? Who was their God?

"Is it ready?" one of them asked. Out of the corner of his eye in the light Mulder saw Skinner and Shannon standing in front of the others. Shannon was expressionless but Skinner was certainly afraid. Is 'what' ready, Mulder wondered? The men had guns. They shouldn't need to get anything ready for that.

"Hold him."

A strong arm wrapped around Mulder's chest from behind and pulled him to his feet. Scully attempted to scream then, for them to let him go, but a swift kick out of nowhere to her shoulder kept her down as others approached her. Mulder struggled as he was dragged, not into the desert to be killed as he had assumed, but towards his other friends.

He suddenly realised what was going on and began to fight the man who held him more insistently. His voice was lost in fear; he could not call out to her. She was the only one they gagged, he realised. She was the only one they expected to scream. She was highlighted by the torch. They wanted the rest of them to see.

Mulder watched as one man pulled Scully to her feet. She looked up as though to try to see him but he knew she couldn't with the light in her face. The second man with her raised what looked like a hypodermic syringe and without any warning thrust it deep into the back of her neck. Scully screamed as though she was plunging ten thousand feet without a parachute, and Mulder felt the strength give out in his legs. He had never heard her scream that way before. It went on forever and then it trailed off weakly. She gurgled in completion and then she dropped. Her eyes were still open. They let her go.

No, Mulder thought hurriedly. No, no, no.


	2. Chapter 2

Two

"Never lie to us again. Come down when you're ready," the supersoldier told Shannon, before turning and leaving, his comrades falling into line behind him. Mulder had dropped to his knees in the sand and Shannon could feel everybody holding their breaths. She turned behind her to Gibson, but he was refusing to meet anybody's eyes. He was staring at the sand. She did not want to address him and break the silence.

Scully was lying on her side facing them, but the supersoldiers had taken the torch and it was dark. They could barely make out her unmoving figure. Shannon wasn't sure any of them wanted to, but she felt herself reaching for the small torch she kept on her hip nonetheless. She aimed it at Scully's bare feet first and took a bold step forward as she allowed the beam to slowly traverse the body.

"Stop," Mulder hissed suddenly, pushing himself to his feet and knocking the torch out of her hand with an anger his voice had not displayed. Shannon could have resisted but didn't, and the torch rolled away into the sand. Mulder stalked away from them, and knelt in the sand by his partner.

Behind Shannon, Sarah had begun hyperventilating, and Skinner helped her to sit down.

"Is Dana dead?" she asked between deep gulps of air, panicked.

"I don't know," Shannon answered honestly. Everybody turned to look at Gibson. Monica had also sunk to her knees in the sand. John had walked away with Nicholas, who had begun crying when Scully's scream startled him. The crying had stopped but John had not returned. The only sound was their heavy breathing. Gibson felt tears sting his eyes as he tried to explain what he knew about what had happened.

"Dana's chip must have been emitting a signal," he whispered. "They were afraid of it. It must have given away our location and they were afraid it would give away 'their' location. They came to destroy it. They will let us pass through the research facility and go to the colony now they can be sure nobody is using us as a tracking system."

"But nobody was," Skinner pointed out. "Otherwise we would have been caught."

"We're not in alien territory here," Shannon reminded them. "This is supersoldier country. They share fundamentals with both alien and human biological technology. I told you, inland was preferable. I just didn't know... I didn't know about her chip. I did not know she was one of those tested. In her neck, right? From the government?"

"Straight from the Pentagon," Skinner replied.

"Then I can only speculate as to their motives," Shannon sighed. "I was not aware they would be against its existence. We must stay here tonight."

"We are not going anywhere," Monica insisted firmly, her voice shaking as she stared at the two figures in the dark just metres from them. "We need to set up some lights. Gibson, retrieve Dana's medical supplies from her pack."

xxx 

Mulder held his breath as he pushed loose, orange hair away from Scully's face. Her eyes were half-lidded and rolled back in her head. He choked on a sob as he reached forward to run his fingers across her eyes, tenderly brushing them shut, feeling her long lashes tickle briefly at his skin. He tried to pull her gag out of her mouth but it was tied too tightly and he did not want to hurt her, not sure how badly her neck was hurt.

He could see that she was still breathing, but that meant very little to him if she was already dying. He let his fingers rest against her neck while his other hand continued to smooth her hair away from her pale skin. She had a very slow pulse, but after nearly a minute of counting seconds he thought it seemed steady.

He remembered her pulse from just an hour ago so differently, he realised. He remembered wrapping his hand around her neck as she kissed him, hot and sated. Her heart had been beating so quickly it seemed unnatural and he had pulled her chest to his. Their breathing and the sound of his own thumping heart had been all he had heard in those quiet moments. He had held her that way so many times. He knew the rhythm to which her heart slowed down because it often matched his own.

Mulder thought it had slowed down to pretty much as slow as it could go without killing her. But he did not know what had been done to her neck or brain. Perhaps she had already gone.

Gentle, yellow light bathed him and he turned his head to see Monica bravely walking forward with Scully's first aid kit and bag. Gibson was carrying the lamp, and he seemed to stop in his tracks when the light illuminated Scully's torso.

"She's breathing," he stated, awestruck. Mulder nodded and Gibson turned around instantly to the others. "She's breathing!" he shouted, excited.

"What?" Skinner exclaimed. Mulder turned his attention back to Scully as Monica sat beside him and he heard footsteps hurrying forward.

"Do me a favour Monica," he whispered. "Since you're closer, brush your finger over the arch of her foot. I've seen her do it." Monica nodded and Mulder watched her closely. If Scully was still with them, if her spine was undamaged, her reflexes should work.

Monica's hand shook as she reached out to Scully's sandy feet. She ran the lightest of touches along the sensitive underside of her friend's closest foot, and gasped when Scully's leg jerked from her knee downwards, pulling her foot away to safety.

"Oh my God," she whispered, reaching down to quickly wrap her warm hand around Scully's ankle. "I'm sorry," she hissed, leaning closer. "It's okay Dana." She turned to Mulder. "What do you need?" she asked him desperately. He had seen Scully being a doctor more than any of them. He would know what to do. He had to know what to do.

"Scissors," he told her, gesturing to the gag. "I can't loosen it." Monica dug around for a few minutes before producing a sharp pair of scissors from the environmentally safe green bag in which Scully carried all her equipment and controlled medications. Mulder gently eased one of the blades between the taut material and Scully's fragile skin, and Monica looked away when she heard the loud snip. She looked back in time to see Mulder tenderly removing the material from her mouth as she remained laying on her side. He helped her slack jaw shut and held his hand in place for a few seconds as though he was afraid if he let go it would fall off.

"And the stethoscope," he mumbled finally, watching her dig for it. Gibson came to sit on the other side of her, behind the back of her head. He was frowning down at her and it made Mulder uncomfortable. "What, Gibson?" he snapped impatiently.

"I uh, I can't hear her," he whispered. "She's breathing?" Mulder took the offered stethoscope and put it in his ears, wasting no time in reaching under Scully's green jumper and white tank top and resting the cold metal on the inside of her left breast. She had held his hand there so often he knew exactly where to go. Mulder looked at his watch in the dim light. He was confused by the impossibly slow, double beat but heartened by its familiar sound.

He moved the stethoscope around to her back, leaning over her and listening to her breathe. The speed and depth of her breaths echoed her heartbeat, and though it was all going very slowly she seemed to be taking in large amounts of oxygen. He listened to the sounds of her body for five minutes before reluctantly pulling away and slinging the stethoscope around his neck as though he was qualified to make a diagnosis.

"I don't think she's dying," he announced softly. "At least...everything is slow but...stable."

"But Gibson can't hear her," Shannon pointed out.

"That doesn't mean she's dead," Gibson promised quickly before anybody panicked because of him. "She um, she might be in a coma. When I was in hospitals as a kid being tested all the time I passed some people in comas and I had some problems...Or she might have had her thoughts wiped, or stalled somehow. She could be hibernating."

"Hibernating," Monica repeated, unable to help her smile. "Like a bear?"

Gibson did not reply. He gathered Scully's hair from where Mulder had kindly brushed it and lifted it up. Mulder leant over to look more closely and shut his eyes in grief when he saw what Gibson had revealed. The puncture wound was large for a needle and a trickle of blood had escaped sideways across her neck towards the ground. The entry had been by something thick, much thicker than a standard syringe. No wonder she had screamed, he thought. A large, black bruise had already formed around the injection site and over her vertebrae. Initially it was the size of the bottom of a can and it looked to be rapidly spreading, stretching down her back and around the side of her neck. Mulder could see it moving. If Gibson had not lifted her hair he would have seen it eventually.

"Oh, that doesn't look good," Monica whispered, standing. In front of her, Mulder had picked up the scissors beside him and sliced through her jumper while she lay on her side. It was the fastest way to get it off her without moving her, after all. Monica watched as he tenderly revealed Scully's upper torso in a thin, white tank top. Monica saw goose bumps rise on Scully's chest and arm but what she focussed on more was the menacing, dark grey shadow stretching around her neck and reaching downwards to her breast and over her shoulder to her forearm. "I'm going to find John. Where's Sarah?"

"I left her back there. Go and get her," Skinner agreed, nodding as he watched the skin of Scully's neck turning from grey to black. "Gibson, tell Mulder what you heard in those men about the signal." Mulder stared at Gibson in shock as he explained.

"They destroyed the chip," he surmised once Gibson was done. "But, but she can't live without it."

"I don't think we'll know whether she can or not until she either opens her eyes again or, or not," Gibson mumbled sadly. "I'm sorry Mulder. I don't know what they injected her with. I'm not sure they knew. They just knew it as 'the concealer."

"Shit," he whispered, resting his hand back on Scully's neck. Her skin felt normal under his touch, not swollen despite the bruising. There did not look to be a build up of any sort under her skin, no extra fluid and no decomposition of tissue. It almost reminded him of the black oil virus but it was not moving fast enough for that, and it was not running through her like little worms. It was just a bruise. It was almost as though she WAS rapidly decomposing, but there was no cellular breakdown in her tissue or skin. That would have happened first. There was also no drop in her pulse, he realised as he again checked it against his watch. He reached down himself and tickled her foot, and she reacted the same instantaneous way.

John returned at a run without the baby. He had obviously given Nicky back to Monica who was bringing Sarah to them more slowly. John stood over Scully and stared at the blackness already working its way down to her fingers.

"Holy shit, what's that?" he asked. Mulder, Skinner and Gibson all shrugged. John held a hand over his mouth as he watched. Mulder gently moved Scully onto her back and ran his hand over the skin between her breast and collarbone. The darkening was coming in from both sides, wrapping around her from behind, and it almost seemed to follow Mulder's palm. Or perhaps Mulder was following it, John realised.

"She's breathing," he stated with surprise. "I heard Gibson call but I...I mean that's unreal."

"I don't know whether to keep her warm or cold," Mulder announced, confused as he stroked her cheek. She felt a normal sort of temperature despite the chill he knew she must have felt when he cut her jumper. He turned to the medical box and snapped it open. It contained the less serious medications and was more for general use. It was loaded with mild painkillers, bandaids and small bandages. It also contained a thermometer. He carefully opened her mouth and, making sure her tongue was not swollen or in danger of being swallowed he inserted the thermometer and closed her lips. She let him do it all without moving. Her face was becoming a sickening shade of grey as the darkness crept more slowly upwards.

Gibson was stroking her orange hair and focussing, as though he was trying with all his might to hear her. Mulder wanted him to announce that he could hear her, they all did, and Gibson knew that, but Mulder also did not want him to feel disappointed in not being able to hear her. It wasn't his fault if Scully did not feel like sharing all of a sudden.

Gibson's eyes snapped up then and Mulder knew he had been heard. He offered the young man a wavering smile and Gibson looked away, blushing. Mulder sighed, returning his attention back to Scully. As long as she was breathing, he was not leaving her. He removed the thermometer and stared at it in shock.

"No way," he whispered.

"What?" John asked. "Too hot?"

"Totally normal," Mulder hissed, handing it up to John's outstretched hand. "I'll try it somewhere else," he announced once it had been handed back. He shook it then put it under her arm and let it rest there for a few minutes, before looking once again. Again, her temperature was normal.

"I don't like this," Skinner mumbled. "I get the feeling she's going to start spiking any minute."

"We can't help her if she does," John sighed, shaking her head.

"I want to put her onto a sleeping bag," Mulder announced. "Can someone go and get ours? They're down that way." He pointed and Gibson nodded. He knew exactly where they were, and he stood and wandered to them without a torch.

Mulder did not really want to move Scully, but he was reassured she had suffered no spinal injuries and her vitals were not great but good enough for him to be confident in moving her. He waited until he could see Gibson's shadow returning, and then he moved to a crouch in the sand. John moved around to Scully's other side and helped lift her as Mulder stood. Once he had a strong grip of her under her knees and around her back John transferred the rest of her weight to him. Scully's head rolled back over the edge of his shoulder and she did not move as Mulder carried her the short few metres back to where they had all been sleeping.

Gibson spread out to the grey sleeping bag. Mulder had black and Scully had grey, and Gibson knew exactly what they had been doing in Mulder's sleeping bag. He unzipped the unused, dry enclosure and held it open as Mulder carefully lowered to his knees. Gibson helped pull her legs into the bottom of the bag and watched Mulder lean right over her to gently rest her down. Her head was still in the sand, and he brushed her darkening cheeks.

"Turn away for a second guys," he announced, looking up and making eye contact with as many of his friends as he could. "Please," he added when he saw their reluctance. Finally they all complied, and Mulder had to smile at the realisation that Sarah had been one of the first to respectfully turn. She couldn't even see but had afforded him his wish without question. He appreciated that.

Mulder stared down at Scully and, satisfied they were as alone as possible, he lifted her shirt to above her breasts and unbuttoned her pants, observing just how fast the darkness was spreading in her. Half of her white, flat stomach was nearly as black as his sleeping bag. Her hips were patchy as though she had been badly and repetitively kicked. He took her pants all the way down to her knees and carefully eyed up the inside of her thigh and across her abdomen.

He redressed her quickly, aware everyone was probably impatient and not wanting anyone to turn around to see his partner nearly naked and covered in blackness. He had just needed to see for himself that it was everywhere. He pulled her shirt back down to her waist reverently, taking a second to appreciate how good her body still looked at forty. She looked healthy despite their months in the desert, and he liked to think some of that health was attributable to him. She kept him healthy, after all. He liked to think he had looked after her also.

Though not very well this time, he decided, smoothing the thin fabric over her waist and buttoning up her pants.

"Okay," he whispered. "You can turn back around now."

"Is it all over her?" Monica asked, nervous as she cradled her son's sleeping body to her chest. Mulder bit his bottom lip and nodded.

"Not a hundred percent yet but it will be. It hasn't been long since it happened and it's already I'd say maybe seventy-five percent. Gibson, Shannon, do either of you know what this could be?"

"No," Shannon sighed. "I'm sorry Mulder. All I know is that as Gibson said, it's a concealer. It's to prevent what's in her neck being used as a honing device. Potentially its purpose is to destroy the chip completely."

"They said we could pass now that it was done," Gibson added. "They didn't say we had to leave her here. We could take her with us."

"I need to make sure she's stable before we move," Mulder replied seriously, staring at the doctor lying unconscious on the sleeping bag at his knees. It always sucked when Scully got hurt and was unable to actually 'be' her own doctor. Mulder was always more confident when it was her advice he was following, but in this case even if she was awake to examine and treat herself he wasn't sure she would know what to do.

"In the morning we can set up a shade cloth against the raft," John announced. "We can keep her cool under there and, well, we'll wait."

"Does one of you have a pen light?" Mulder asked. Gibson pointed to the first aid box and shopping bag that had been dropped by somebody right beside him. He hadn't even noticed. He retrieved Scully's small light from inside the box where the thermometer had been stored, and he held his breath as he leant over her face and pulled one of her eyelids open. He was so afraid he would look into her eyes and see blackness swimming across them, the signs of an alien virus he had thought was abandoned long ago in favour of a more foolproof approach.

He was relieved to see no floating black mist in the clear whites of her eyes. He was even more relieved when both her pupils dilated. He had no idea whether how they had moved was how they were meant to have moved, but they 'had' moved. One was not stuck like he knew might happen in a stroke. Both her feet had moved for him, both her eyes were responding to changes in light. Surely that meant both sides of her brain were still active.

"I don't get it," he whispered, suddenly deflated. He had no idea how to help her. He did not know for how long she would be black, or unconscious, and he did not know whether she would remember him or anything if she woke up. If Gibson could not hear her, could they have completely wiped her memory with whatever they had injected her with? In their work, they had linked the chip to memory control, but never to a scientific certainty, and Scully's memories prior to and since her initial abduction had never been tampered with. Mulder believed it was only the memories of the abductions themselves that had been manipulated.

He was surprised when Gibson volunteered to sit with him while the others attempted to sleep. Mulder wanted to stay awake and talking was the best way to do that. The lamp had been extinguished but Mulder had the use of a battery-powered torch which he used to regularly scan Scully's body, clicking it on and off when necessary.

After two hours by his watch there had been no change. Apart from the fact he could barely see the white of her skin. He sighed, switching the torch off after another perusal and wrapping his fingers around her wrist, eager to again feel her heartbeat. It was slow and steady, and he was glad he had such a tangible sign of life to hold onto.

"I'm really sorry," Gibson whispered. "I should have heard them coming."

"Why didn't you?" Mulder asked. He was not angry, but he was confused. Nothing about what had happened made sense, and Gibson should have been the one to bring those answers, but he hadn't.

"Sometimes when you and Scully are together I find it hard to hear anything else," he mumbled, blushing as Mulder stared at him in shock. They had always known Gibson heard them, and Mulder had just assumed he dealt with it the same way he dealt with everything else. He had just assumed it became one of many thoughts Gibson could just block out. "It's not always so simple, you know," Gibson reminded him gently as his fingers drew a continuous figure-eight in the sand. "Sometimes the more powerful thoughts are really, really hard to block out, and they eclipse everything else I'm hearing. It's like trying to hear people talking right in front of you while a siren is blaring over your head."

"Gibson, I-"

"Don't say sorry," he interrupted seriously, staring at Mulder with tears in his eyes. "It's not your fault, or Scully's. It's always been that way with the two of you and I'm used to it. It doesn't happen just when you're together physically. Sometimes it's when you're talking about other stuff too. I know you both. I know you need each other especially after what happened last year. I'm used to hearing you stronger than the others. That's all fine. I'm just sorry I wasn't able to pay enough attention to what else was around us in time to warn you."

"They would have found her anyway," Mulder pointed out. "If she was emitting some sort of signal like you said. I don't know why it didn't happen sooner."

"We wandered into their range," Gibson answered. "Just like people wander into mine."

"Do they know what you can do? Could they read your mind?" he asked curiously, his thumb stroking over the top of Scully's unmoving hand.

"No. We're safe in that regard. But they know Shannon is a supersoldier. Is her hand warm or cold?" he asked suddenly. Mulder smiled.

"It's warm," he promised, gesturing for Gibson to take over. His short fingers wrapped gently around Scully's dark palm and he took a deep, steadying breath at the contact with her.

"You're right," he mumbled. "She does feel pretty normal. Her hand's still firm, like the tissue is okay even though it looks like it's dying. I think she'll be okay." Mulder chuckled.

"Buddy you can't even hear her. She's right in front of you."

"I still think she'll be okay," he promised. "I don't know how or when, but I don't think she's dying."

"I'm not sure she's dying either," Mulder agreed. "Yet. I don't know how long someone can live like this. She almost looks like she's been poisoned, and if that's the case her kidneys couldn't possibly filter all this black stuff out of her. I'm not even sure dialysis could fix this."

"She's got a lot of medicine in her bag," Gibson reminded him gently. Mulder nodded.

"I know, but I'm not authorising she get any of it until she either tells me she needs it or somebody else tells me. Somebody who knows what the hell this is. Even if she woke up screaming for those pills I probably wouldn't give them to her. I'd give her some sleeping pills instead." Gibson chuckled. "She'd never know," Mulder added in jest.

"Until she woke up again," he taunted, squeezing Scully's hand. "What do you want to do?"

"Give it a day," Mulder decided. "I think what you said about them not saying we 'couldn't' take her with us was a valid point. Maybe I could carry her, but it is still a long way to that facility and we don't know what it's for or what sort of reception we would get. We don't even know if they were telling the truth about the colony. It might just be a myth."

"I trust that Shannon believes it is true," Gibson promised as best he could. "I think we should try. The alternative is that we run out of food and water and die anyway. We only have enough for another couple of months if we're lucky."

"Do you think there could be answers in the facility?" Mulder asked. "Answers about what happened and what the territories are like now?" Gibson nodded. "Should we send volunteers first then? It's just that I can't leave Dana, and I'm not sure I would want to take her there. She didn't want to go in the first place. She was afraid of it."

"I know," Gibson reminded him in a whisper. "I think Shannon would volunteer. I think I should go as well. I would be able to tell if anybody was lying. I think that could be important."

"All right," Mulder mumbled. "In the morning we can ask them."

"No need," Shannon stated from directly behind them both. Mulder flinched visibly in surprise and she walked around them calmly to crouch on the other side of Scully. She ran her fingers over Scully's charcoal coloured cheek and hummed. "No improvement I see. I'd be happy to accompany you Gibson. You think you'll be able to hear on the inside?"

"I hope so," he answered. "I'll let you know when we're there."

"You should try to sleep," she whispered kindly. "I'll stay up with Mulder and Dana."

"Okay," Gibson mumbled. Sometimes he still felt like he was a little kid being bossed around by all the grownups he lived with, but underneath that irrationality he understood what Shannon meant; she did not need sleep and he did, and if they were leaving in the morning it would be a long trek and potentially dangerous.

"Would you be okay with her and the rest if we went?" Shannon asked Mulder. He nodded, returning his eyes to Scully and watching her chest rise and fall with each of her breaths. He brought the top edge of the sleeping bag further over her to keep her warm. He would need to dig up another jumper from somewhere, he realised. The nights were still cool. "You can sleep too if you want," Shannon offered. "I'd wake you if anything changed."

"Not tonight," he whispered. The first night was important, he remembered. If she got through it, maybe it would mean she was not as seriously hurt as she appeared to be. Maybe, just maybe, she would start to recover. Looking at her skin, Mulder could not imagine her ever recovering to the woman he had made love to just hours earlier, but Scully had proved him wrong in the past. He hoped she did so again.

xxx 

"Are you sure he said it was okay?" Monica asked as Shannon and Gibson sorted through what they would need and shoved it all into a bag which Shannon would carry. They would leave the raft behind. Monica looked past them to where Mulder was asleep in the sand beside Scully in her sleeping bag.

Shannon said he had only fallen asleep an hour previously, and they all knew he would be awake shortly. It was barely dawn, and soon the sun would wake him. It would almost certainly not wake Scully, who looked like she had been pushed through a dirty chimney. Her orange hair looked unreal against her blackened skin. Mulder did not seem to care. His face was sharing part of the sleeping bag beside her and he was breathing steadily into her shoulder, one arm wrapped around her somewhere underneath the bag.

"It was his idea," Shannon answered. "We will return or send someone back for you."

"And if you don't? How long should we wait?" John asked as he readied one of the sheets they carried with them. He would attach it to the top of the raft and then weigh its edges down in the sand, hopefully creating half a tent to protect Scully from the sun.

"A week, perhaps," she decided. "They said it was okay to go through. The alternative if you don't isn't much different to the worst possible alternative if you do follow us, but we will try to come back."

"We promise," Gibson added, putting his sunglasses on in preparation for the bright and instant sunrises they were used to. A small daypack was on his back in addition to Shannon carrying the larger bag and Monica sighed. They were leaving. There was nothing she or anyone could do to stop them.

"Okay," she whispered, resigned. "Be careful."

"Look after Mulder and Scully," Gibson mumbled, hugging her briefly and then shaking John's hand. He went up to Skinner and Sarah, who were both silent, neither liking the plan or the fact it had not been run by them prior to its decision. "I promise I'll come back," he told them, squeezing Sarah's hand and nodding seriously at Skinner. "And don't let Mulder flip out. I think she'll be okay. I'll try to find out."

"Sure," Skinner agreed. How could he not appreciate the plan despite being blindsided? They needed to work out what to do about Scully and their own futures. Gibson and Shannon were the best people for that job and he trusted them.

Gibson hesitated before he left. He frowned at Monica and John and called everyone into a huddle.

"If she dies," he whispered. "And we're not back. Let him make his own choice about whether he wants to go too, okay? Don't fight him. Neither of them would want that. Trust me. Okay? I don't know if he would want to go, but if he does and she is really gone, and I mean REALLY gone, then just let him make up his own mind."

"Yeah," John sighed. "Okay. How gone is really gone?"

"You'll know," Gibson promised with a soft sigh. "Thanks. We'll be back."

"Good luck," Sarah urged kindly, offering them both a cautious smile.

"Thanks," Gibson replied with a grin. "You too."

xxx 

"Thanks for coming with me," Gibson stated once he and Shannon were at the bottom of the dune they had camped on, right at the edge of the desert. In front of him, the sand gradually trailed away to reveal dirt and bitumen roads. They were parts of the earth he had not seen in a very long time, and he was excited just to be able to walk down a road once again.

"No worries. You need me there anyway," Shannon pointed out. "I can get us in. We might need to fib but let me handle it."

"You're the boss," he assured her respectfully. "If they're lying, I'll tug on my left ear or something similarly corny." Shannon chuckled, nodding her agreement. "You are a very strange supersoldier you know."

"I'm not that strange," she told him. "I could kill you with my bare hands in less than a minute. I just choose not to, based not on orders but on my own desires."

"Are all the female supersoldiers they made like that? Is that why you said they stopped?"

"Narr, I was baiting the guy," she revealed. "I think he was just surprised to see me outside assignment. I do know that the other female supersoldiers I knew of had the tendency to be more highly strung. They could be more violent than the men. I'm not sure there were any others that responded the way I did. I am still violent if I give myself permission to be. If we get into trouble and I start a fight, it's code for, 'Get your ass out of here now', got it?"

"Yeah, no worries," Gibson laughed. "So they picked you from the army cos they thought you'd be just like a man but you weren't?"

"Our company had a certain moral code. Some of the men were testosterone-fuelled adrenaline junkies, but most were pretty average guys, like John is. By the book, serious, and with a high respect for human life. You sort of get a mixed bunch in those groups. The company I was recruited out of, where I served with John, was really successful. We did good work and we were proud of our results. The man I was recruited with though, well he'd been okay I guess, but he was more volatile than the other blokes. None of us joined to senselessly kill, but he responded better to that suggestion than I did. So to answer your question, Gibson, I think they did make an incorrect assumption."

"But they need women supersoldiers, right?" he asked. "Otherwise how do they procreate?"

"In a lab," she answered obviously. "Or the same way they were planning to manipulate genetics through the water supply a few years ago. They can grow supersoldiers in tubes and tubs and raise them in army barracks and voila, not a parent in sight."

"I was listening to Scully and Monica one day," he continued curiously. "And Scully said that supersoldiers are still fundamentally human though. I mean, do they have a desire to recreate?"

"I don't," she admitted. "I doubt others do. All energy is consumed in anger and following orders. There's no time for relationships and there's no need for companionship or friends. They all have their little roles and that's what they do, and they do it without question."

"So who controls the orders?" Gibson asked. Shannon smirked.

"Someone I am looking forward to seeing again very much."


	3. Chapter 3

Three

The light was fading but Shannon had no intention of slowing down or stopping for the night. Gibson did not mind. She was not walking too fast for him and he had easy access to food and water. It was much easier when just two people were walking in comparison to the group they had gotten used to. It was a lighter feeling, and Gibson had spent the day in relative silence. He had lost the majority of base camp's thoughts sometime around lunch, and he still had not been able to break past the unseen barrier somewhere in front of them.

"I think we're close," Shannon announced. Gibson nodded. Her thoughts were always uncomplicated and focussed. She was driven, detached and intelligent. She had not stopped thinking about possible plans of attack or what she would need to say to get in. It was not as though they were just 'passing through'; they wanted entry. Shannon had not felt the need to speak much over the day either. She knew Gibson heard all her thoughts and was up to date on the most recent plans. She knew he would assist her. Gibson knew she felt glad to be trusted, and he did trust her. They all did.

"I can't see anything," he told her.

"We won't until we're there," she replied. "It's hidden." Gibson nodded seriously and removed his torch. Shannon's eyesight was so good she really did not need it, but he did, and he shone the weak beam in front of him.

They had started conserving light even before leaving Mulder and Scully's home in Virginia. Mulder and Scully had stored a finite amount of batteries in their bunker and there were only so many opportunities to steal along the way. Still, they managed. They had a nice little pile to keep them going back with the raft and in their individual packs, but Gibson only had one spare set on him for the current trip. He did not want to waste them.

"Stop," Shannon announced suddenly, holding an arm out so that he ran into it. It was like walking into a metal pole and Gibson groaned, rubbing his chest and looking at where they were. It was the definition of 'nowhere special'. They were on a road, the land on either side was relatively deserted, and the buildings in front of them looked to be in order.

Shannon surprised him by holding her hand out in front of her and moving it forward. Her palm suddenly came into contact with something Gibson had not seen. Was her eyesight 'that' good, he wondered, or were her instincts merely attuned to those of the supersoldier environment?

"It's reading my palm-print," she explained as she held her hand there. Gibson could only nod, stunned. "You could walk straight through if you wanted, if you were merely passing through, but this identification process should get us 'in'. I'm on the system."

"Will it matter that you haven't been a part of the program in so long?" he asked.

"I hope not," she replied with a smirk. A green light suddenly shimmered around the outside of her fingers and she smiled, reaching for him with her free hand and pulling him through in time with her.

Gibson's mouth dropped open in surprise. He knew the circumstances under which Mulder had been abducted several years earlier, the way the craft had been hidden. Mulder had explained it all to him. But he had never witnessed it for himself. A spacecraft protecting itself was one thing, but an entire building?

They were standing on the same road, but on the left was a white, multi-storey building that could have been transferred from any major city. Shannon led him silently up the stairs and she held the door open for him. He knew everything around him was real right away, but it was odd not to see business people walking around the foyer they found themselves in. He still could hear no other voices but Shannon's and his own. Shannon walked to the elevator and pressed her palm again into the pad between the two metal doors. One dinged open and Gibson followed her in.

The elevator was normal, he determined, with reflective glass from the waist up and the same number displays as on every other elevator in the world. Shannon read the floors carefully and he was surprised when she pressed for them to be taken to the tenth floor, the very top. Gibson could see there was no explanation as to what was on that floor, compared to the descriptions that accompanied the others. He opened his mouth to ask but she put a hand on his shoulder before he got the words out.

"Don't speak," she ordered, her voice clipped. Gibson nodded and he let her go. She was slipping into 'the zone', he knew, and there was a chance others were listening to them and observing their entry.

Gibson was relieved when the elevators opened and more voices came into range. He walked beside Shannon as she turned left and headed straight to the desk at reception. Gibson realised all too late that they were in a proper military area. The female secretary at reception was in uniform, not business attire. She was tall and skinny, with dark blonde hair pulled back in at tight bun. Gibson and Shannon were both in t-shirts and jeans, and their sunglasses were on top of their heads. Their bags were still on their backs.

"Hi," Shannon announced, showing no fear despite how casual she looked. "I'm here to see Felicity. Is she in?"

"No one by that name works on this floor," the woman answered. "How did you get in?"

"My name is Shannon McMahon. Give the General a message for me. Tell her Eve wants to see her. I'll wait with my little friend on those chairs over there, and she can send us in whenever she's ready." Shannon had stalked to the chairs, dumped her bag at her feet and taken a seat before the secretary had worked out how to reply. Gibson levelled her with his best cold stare and then went to join Shannon, perching on the chair beside her. "We'll be here for a while," Shannon whispered to him. "Relax."

"You don't need to speak," he hissed back, neither of them taking their eyes of the secretary who was still glaring at them. "I can hear you." Shannon nodded, satisfied. She crossed her legs and her arms and glared right on back at the woman behind the desk. Gibson knew who would win the staring competition. Everyone in the group had played off against her and the only person who had come close to beating her had been Mulder.

Finally the woman had no choice but to pick up the phone.

xxx 

"Mulder," Skinner announced as he ducked under the narrow entrance to the shade cloth John had erected. Mulder was sitting cross-legged at Scully's side as she lay on the open sleeping bag in her clothes from the previous night. Her skin was so dark her white shirt was almost blinding. He quickly let his eyes settle on her chest. It was still rising and falling slowly but without any assistance, and satisfied she was in no immediate danger, he turned his attention back to the man who had been sitting with her for hours. "Mulder we're going to play some ball. You're coming with us. Monica and Sarah can watch Dana."

"I'm not leaving her," he replied simply, not turning around.

"You can either come voluntarily or we can come in here and drag your ass out, and I don't think Dana would want to be disturbed that way." He softened, trying a different tactic. "The girls want to sit with her Mulder. You need to get some space for a few hours. Monica assures me they will call us if there is any change, and we will never be far away. She's stable, right?"

"The same," he confirmed.

"Then come on," Skinner ordered. "Let's do something besides sitting around."

xxx 

Gibson heard General Felicity Braddon before they were allowed into her office. She was in her fifties, with curly, copper-coloured hair pulled back in a tight clip. Her uniform looked to be standard-issue for a General and she wore her decorations proudly on her breast. She was of average height, neither short nor tall for a woman. She had strong, brown eyes, and she looked like she took care of herself physically. She looked fit.

Still, she did not look as strong as Shannon, and Gibson already knew she was no supersoldier.

"Well, well," Shannon whispered once they were standing in front of the General. "Surprise."

"What are you doing here?" Felicity asked, her voice deep. Gibson thought she had an oddly feminine name for such a rigid military person. If he was her he might have changed it just to fit in with the men more. Then again, he got the impression Felicity had never really cared what other people thought of her. To her, her name was meaningless. Just a word. Her rank was what really mattered.

"I thought we could catch up," Shannon declared, sitting down in a nearby chair and reclining with a theatrical sigh, crossing her legs. "Sit, Gibson," she urged. "It's 'very' comfortable here."

"Who is this boy?" Felicity pressed.

"He's a friend," she answered. "If I told you we were lovers would you be shocked?"

"I would, considering what I know of your relationship with a certain Assistant Director of the FBI. Though I'm sure that is no longer a problem for you."

"I'm touched you considered me," Shannon retorted, smirking. "So what's up General? I met a few of your young ones last night. They were out scavenging for a signal."

"Ah," Felicity grinned with recognition. "You were a part of that party, were you?"

"I might have been."

"They didn't tell me they ran into you."

"They didn't know me," she replied coolly. "Why not?"

"There's no point teaching them a history full of 'mistakes'."

"What is this place?" she asked. "It doesn't look much like a production or training facility."

"How did you know I would be here?" Felicity asked instead of answering the question.

"Once I realised how fresh those young men were I knew you wouldn't be far. Do they even have half a brain?"

"Why should they need it? How did the group you are with survive?"

"Fate," Shannon answered in a clipped, smug tone. Felicity rolled her eyes as Shannon challenged her.

"You might be a disgrace to this program, but you are not fantastical enough to believe in fate. You never did."

"How true," Shannon taunted. "So then General, here I am, at your service. Where are the aliens? How come I haven't been super-sonic-blasted onto another planet before now? You could send me to Pluto with the rest of the prisoners still left alive and we could start a convict planet. Or you could just send me to Australia. They have nice beaches there."

"You are still full of shit, aren't you Shannon?"

"The Army taught me well, Ma'am. So where have you stashed all the humans?"

"I have a report here Shannon that says last night's operation was legitimate. Do you have an issue with it?"

"Oh I understand perfectly why they did it. I wouldn't mind a proper explanation as to what was done, but I understand your motives perfectly."

"Did we do the wrong thing, then?"

"I believe you felt you were doing the right thing. What are your plans here? Where is the Shadow Government?"

"They are not here," she assured Shannon. "And you will not be here for much longer either. Do I need to find some of my friends to escort you and your friend from the building?"

"Oh no," Shannon replied with a coy smirk. "I came here to ask you a question, actually. The people I am with require safe passage to a human colony. Can you direct me to such a place?"

"No."

"I know it is further south."

"I know you know that, but I cannot simply let you walk in there. They must be processed first. They need to be verified."

"Your people did that last night," Shannon pointed out. "I'm sure if you have the report you will find it in order."

"You deliberately misled my officers about-" Shannon interrupted her, laughing loudly.

"Officers? Is that what they were? They looked dressed for a funeral, but I saw no identification."

"You lied to them. I could hold you accountable for that. You attempted to conceal the existence of the affected woman. How did you know to do that?"

"I concealed nothing and I understood nothing until I spoke to your men. They're the ones that told me."

"They did no such thing," Felicity scoffed. Shannon smirked.

"Then how would I know? I think I would like a tour," she decided suddenly, turning to stare at Gibson. "What do you say? Would you like to see some really cool stuff?"

"If you think I'm letting you wander freely around here you are mistaken," Felicity insisted. Shannon stood and walked over to the desk, bracing herself on the edge and leaning all the way over. Her eyes were cold but she had complete control over everything she did. She grinned.

"Bite me. When's the war?"

"The war is here," Felicity stated.

"That's bullshit," Shannon scoffed. "Last time I checked you weren't that desperate to die. So why don't you tell me where to take my pretty little hiney and I promise I won't tell anybody about what you really did."

"Who do you know who cares? What can you do?"

"Maybe nothing," Shannon conceded. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I don't need the tour. So are you happy your signal has been cut off now?"

"Ecstatic," Felicity hissed.

"You are satisfied the group on the perimeter of this place is human?"

"Yes."

"Are you going to let me walk out of here, General Braddon, or will I have to arm wrestle you first?"

"Step away from my desk please," she answered curtly. Shannon grinned, gladly pulling herself upright and folding her arms behind her back.

"I hope I see you again someday," Shannon whispered, turning her back on the General to retrieve her large pack. Gibson followed her out of the office and back into the elevator. He remained expressionless and silent as she pressed to return to the ground floor. She held her thumb on the button even as the elevator descended and Gibson watched as the floor indicator stopped on the ground level despite the fact the elevator itself had not stopped.

Wow, he thought. Very cool.

Shannon removed her thumb and the lift stopped, the doors opening with the same soft ding he had heard a million times in his life. He followed her into what looked like a traditional science laboratory, but again Gibson was surprised to discover it mostly deserted. The voices from the upper floors were muffled for him, and he was not used to the interference in such close proximity. Obviously there was something in the building itself which assisted in protecting the secrets of those inside; the same way Superman was protected from kryptonite by lead, Gibson thought with a nostalgic smile. TV, he mused. He really did miss it.

Shannon knew exactly where she was going and Gibson followed. He still could not believe that she had executed her plan so perfectly upstairs. He had received a lot of information and most of it had been so surprising it had taken all of Gibson's energy to remain stoic.

"Boo," Shannon whispered as she poked her head around a door. Gibson stared around her curiously. A young man with brown hair and glasses was sitting at a computer in a lab coat, jeans and a casual shirt, and he turned at her gentle greeting. He broke into a smile.

A computer, Gibson processed suddenly. It was working. It was a real computer. Holy shit.

"I was beginning to think you would never show," the man taunted playfully, urging Shannon to enter and smiling at Gibson when he saw him. "And you brought a friend. Nice to see you getting out more Shannon. Have you been up to see God?"

"Pleasant as ever," she teased. "So what have you got for me?"

"I'm assuming you got to them and that this is not the man you spoke of."

"You assume correctly," she assured him. "I have them. One is blind. There is an infant. They need assistance."

"You have to give me something more than that," he told her with an easygoing smile.

"One is a doctor," she stated, raising an eyebrow in challenge. "Her early studies were in physics. She is now a practising physician. Her husband is a psychologist."

"And how did you stumble across those two gems?" he asked hopefully.

"I stumble, I land places," she teased, both of them laughing. She punched his upper arm playfully, though because of her strength it was no more than a tap. Gibson had a feeling it would still smart. "So come on bro, can you get them in?"

"You know I can," he grinned.

"There's been a hiccup," she admitted. "The doctor has been treated with something called a concealer."

"Oh, she's one of them. Her name?" he asked, turning to his computer. Shannon leant casually against the desk as Gibson stood in the background and observed.

"Dana Scully. What's her middle initial?" she asked Gibson, turning to him.

"K," he answered, aware there was no reason to distrust the situation in which he found himself. "For Katherine."

"Got her," the man declared as soon as the words were out of his mouth. "Gimme a sec...Oh, what a surprise Shannon. The FBI. You do have friends in high places. And what is this grand doctor's condition?"

"Serious but stable," Shannon stated. "What can you tell me about it?"

"They don't tell me those things I'm afraid. Now are these people aware of the truth?"

"They will be. I had to come here to confirm it for myself. I wasn't sure until the little twerps found us last night."

"Cute, aren't they?" he teased. "I still think God uses them as her sex toys."

"Thankfully I wouldn't know anything about that," she promised. "She's going to be pissed if she catches me down here."

"She won't," he replied certainly. "And I can get you out without you having to use the front door. So how many?"

"Nine including myself and the infant."

"Oh, a pack," he whispered, intrigued. "Are there family relations?"

"Doctor and psychologist are married," she lied. "Parents of the infant are married. There is myself, this young man here and a man and his niece."

"Necessity of keeping them all together?"

"Do what you can," she replied. "They're close."

"All ex-FBI?"

"Pretty much," she smiled. "The man with his niece is the one I told you about."

"Ahah!" he sung with a wide grin. "Look here's the deal. Blind girl is not on the list of immediate yeses."

"She's fertile," Shannon assured him. "She's handled very long trips without her sight."

"She'll still need to go through the clinic," he told her. Shannon sighed. "Hey, don't diss it. They might be able to help her."

"She's not blind from birth," Shannon replied. "She's blind from the flash."

"Oh," he sighed. "Bummer. Well look you know they've got their little empire up and running now but they still need people like me. Will they behave?"

"They don't know yet," she mentioned casually. "I'd imagine they would but it's going to be a long conversation."

"What did you tell them?"

"The party line," she replied seriously. "So come on, stop stalling. Can you do anything or am I wasting my time? Because we can go it alone, but I know you want the same thing I do. They're good people. They should be allowed in." He hesitated and Gibson narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "Come on," Shannon pressed. "Think of what they've been through just to get here. We came all the way from DC. Pretty please?"

"Stop sucking up Shannon, it's unbecoming," he laughed. "Of course I can get them in. But they WILL have to be processed just like everyone else. Nobody new has been let in for many months now. Frankly I thought you must have been toasted like everyone else."

"Don't tell me they started without me?"

"Would YOU have waited? But that doesn't mean I can't get you in. You're famous."

"Well God's little shepherds didn't know me."

"Good," he teased. She grinned, also happy. "Now I shall need names, and I need to know the fighters from the friendlies. Pull up a couple of chairs."

xxx 

"You think they're okay?" Monica asked Mulder as they sat on the sand and stared up at the starry sky. A cloud drifted across the full moon slowly as he nodded. "It's good Scully's doing so well." Mulder stared at her with a curious smile. "You know what I mean," she whispered. "She's holding on with everything she's got."

"She is, isn't she," he whispered. "Strange there hasn't been a change in twenty-four hours though. If she is in a coma we're pretty screwed."

"We'll carry her out if we have to, Mulder," Monica promised. "I'm just worried she's not getting any fluids."

"Can't risk her choking," Mulder mumbled, shaking his head. "She was shaded all day. Hopefully that was enough. You know I had this thought. What if it's like an incubation period?"

"Incubation?" Monica asked. "Like the hibernation idea Gibson floated?"

"What if she wakes up a completely 'new' person?" he explained. "And that's the reason Gibson can't hear her. She's not there anymore. Someone new will come along."

"It's pretty out there, but I wouldn't say it's impossible. There are a hundred possibilities."

"It just happened SO fast," Mulder sighed. "I keep going over and over it and we had no warning, but it was one of those things where it would have happened with or without a warning. If they could track Scully...It was not as though anybody knew that before we got here, and it wasn't as though we had been planning to move back out again. It was... inevitable."

"Hard to admit, hey?" Monica asked softly. Mulder nodded, shutting his eyes to block out the stars. They glittered too brightly for him that night, he decided. "We're going to take it in shifts tonight," she added. Mulder opened his mouth and stared at her but she shook her head. "No arguments. We already worked it out. You need more than one hour's sleep and we are all capable of taking her pulse. We will wake you for any news, good or bad."

"I just don't think I'll be able to sleep," he admitted. "I'm worried, Monica. If her body was filtering anything she would be losing fluid, surely. She's not even breaking a sweat, and we didn't need to change her today, right?" Monica shook her head. "It's not 'normal'," he insisted. "I'm just afraid she's shutting down," he whispered. "I mean she looks like a marble statue. What if she turns into one of those carbon corpses? What should I do?"

"We'll see how tonight goes," Monica promised. "And then tomorrow, and then the next day. We'll just do what we do, Mulder. If we need to carry her with us we will. As long as she's alive, nobody will be abandoning anybody. Got it?" He nodded.

"Thanks," he whispered, reaching over and gripping one of her hands.

"You're welcome. Now try to get some rest out here. I'll go and sit with her. I've left Sarah alone with her too long."

xxx 

"Shannon," Gibson began as they left the basement office through a secret passageway and reached the surface outside the protective barrier they had first crossed. She hummed as she shut the door to the house they had come through and looked around, smiling up at the full moon. "How did you do it?"

"Keep it from you, you mean?" she asked. He nodded. "I was told by Skinner who you were before we got close enough that first day, and I just made sure I never thought about it specifically enough for you to understand. I only briefly let myself consider it when I knew you were preoccupied with other thoughts. I compartmentalise. You never picked it up?"

"It always confused me how you were so simple and yet vague in a lot of thoughts. It makes sense now. You were doing it on purpose. Nobody else has ever done that. Not even the men from last night."

"They didn't know to try. They can," Shannon assured him seriously. "That's why you need to be careful. You think the others will be mad?"

"I think they'll be more concerned with what we will have to go through carrying Scully to where we need to go, and about this whole processing business."

"Do you want to camp somewhere? It's late," Shannon offered.

"It's nearly morning," he replied. "Let's just keep going. We'll be back by afternoon and I can get a proper sleep tomorrow night before we move. No one at camp would have been sleeping without us with Scully how she is anyway."

"Did you get anything from either of them about whether or not she'll get better?" Shannon asked.

"No," he sighed. "But your friend downstairs didn't think it was a big deal. He ignored you when you mentioned it and moved right on so...considering how familiar you are with each other, he might have said something sympathetic or stopped talking about her like she would be coming with us if he thought she was dying. That's what most people do."

"True," Shannon agreed. "Will you help me explain?" Gibson laughed.

"Not chickening out are you, Shannon?" he teased. "That's not very supersoldier-y of you. How about how you stood up to that General woman?"

"That's different. I've known her a very long time, and she's a total bitch. I have no problem pitting myself against people who really deserve to be brought down a peg, or in her case, a few thousand feet. Did you find out where-"

"Oh yeah," Gibson assured her with a wide grin. "You played her perfectly Shannon. I've got EVERYTHING. I am SO in," he promised.


	4. Chapter 4

Four

Sarah was enjoying sitting with Scully and sharing her energy. It was afternoon, and Monica had dragged Mulder outside of the tent for some food, considering he had not eaten since the previous night. Sarah was the designated, temporary-fill-in minder. She was never left alone with Scully for long periods of time, but they were happy for her to sit in, particularly if it meant giving them all a break. Sarah was not bothered by Scully's appearance the way the rest of them were, and even a blind girl could take a pulse.

She sighed, holding Scully's hand as she sat cross-legged beside her in the sand. She knew from feeling over Scully's body that she remained in her singlet top and pants, and she was not covered by the bag. That was fine for during the day, but she would need to be covered that night as it was going to again get cool.

The last time Mulder had taken her temperature, it had again been normal. He had told her it hadn't moved at all, neither had her heart rate or rate of breaths per minute. It was as though she was completely stable in her instable environment. Which was good in some regards, but it still would be nice for her to break away from that security and show them she was alive.

From sitting with Scully, Sarah knew she was not as sick as everybody seemed to think. She could just sense it. She had shared this feeling with Monica, who had agreed, but Mulder was harder to convince. They were positive around him without being overly hopeful. He genuinely wanted her to get better, but he was confused and did not want to get his hopes up. It seemed silly for her to die now, Sarah understood. She knew they had been through a lot of dangerous situations in their lives, and she had a feeling Mulder and Scully expected to go down fighting in a situation like the one they were in.

She also got the impression Mulder thought Scully was invincible and would never die. It was funny how Scully kept trying to prove him wrong, Sarah thought. The man just did not get it, and he probably wouldn't until she really was dead. Then he would kill himself. That was her interpretation of all the things she had heard since meeting them. It was sad that they had nothing more to live for. They had no children to look after and nothing to keep them going past the other person's death.

Sarah found the whole relationship very unusual. It was certainly unique. She could never imagine wanting to end her life, but maybe it was the situation that had pushed them to that point. Perhaps one year previously before the invasion they had been a normal couple. They probably had been, she realised. It was not until the rest of their world had ended that they had really started to see their relationship as something so all-important. Then again, there had to be a history upon which to base those realisations.

It just wasn't her style, but perhaps she had not suffered enough in her life. For according to her uncle they had suffered.

'This is sad,' she had told Skinner that morning. She had been surprised to hear him scoff.

'This is normal,' he had replied. 'Welcome to the X Files.'

'You're not worried?'

'Of course I'm worried, but I've felt like this before and I will again. The good thing about now is that 'this' happens much less frequently. It might sound strange, but Dana's been in worse shape. Mulder's been in WAY worse shape.'

Sitting beside her, Sarah could not imagine what their lives had been like for it to be considered 'normal' to turn black upon being injected with something completely unexplained. But Sarah did seem to be the only one struggling with that idea in and of itself. The others were all worried about Scully but not about what had happened or why. So perhaps they were all desensitised, she determined. They knew they would probably find no answers so just took what came to them and then dealt with the consequences.

It was odd and she did not like it. She reached forward and rested one of her hands on Scully's stomach when she heard her friend inhale. Scully was taking deep, clean breaths. She let her hand rest there without putting much weight on Scully, while her other hand kept a hold of the blackened fingers closest to her. Not that they felt swollen or broken in any way. Her hand was warm and firm just as Sarah remembered. Monica had written that down in the notes she was keeping. It seemed important to them both.

Sarah let go after several minutes and reached beside her for the bottle of water and towel. It was still warm underneath the shade. Sarah covered the open bottle with the towel and tipped it upside down to wet the thin material. Then she put the bottle down and leant over to dab gently along Scully's forehead. She and Monica had agreed that some moisture would probably be welcomed by Scully's body. They did not want her to overheat and she was potentially very dehydrated.

Sarah held Scully's head steady with one hand but she did not move as her brow was brushed with the cool cloth. Sarah folded it over and laid it gently across Scully's forehead.

"There you go," she whispered. "It's pretty hot today Dana, but you're doing okay. You must be, if Mulder willing to leave you with a blind archaeology major, right?" She chuckled to herself, reaching back down to hold Scully's hand reverently in both of hers. "You'll be all right," she promised gently. "Everyone's rooting for you."

"Sarah, are you hungry?" Monica asked, sticking her head underneath the sharp angle of the narrow tent and smiling at her. "For lunch today we have oatmeal biscuits or some tuna on a cracker. Mm, yummy, yes?" Sarah laughed, turning her head towards that side of the tent, just past Scully's bare feet.

"What are you going for?"

"Well I should have tuna, but I think I might treat myself to some biscuits. I might save the tuna until dinner."

"Wow, how adventurous," Sarah teased with a wide grin. "I might join you. Two biscuits please."

"Comin' right up," Monica promised, disappearing. Sarah waited patiently, knowing Monica was not far. Once everyone was finished eating Sarah would let Mulder sit with Scully for the rest of the day while she relaxed outside. Even though she knew it sounded lazy of her, they had really only arrived at their goal destination the previous day. Prior to that they had been walking for a very long time, and they had not camped in one place for more than a day since leaving Virginia. That had been months ago.

Nobody spoke of time anymore, but Nicholas had only been a month old when they left, and he was now much bigger. He was still a baby though, and Monica was doing her best to keep estimating his age. He was definitely no older than four months, apparently. Sarah felt bad the boy was going to grow up without having a proper birthday, but then again none of them had proper birthdays anymore if the calendar no longer existed, right?

They would just get old. That thought made her sad also.

"I wouldn't blame you Dana," she whispered. "If you just gave up, because sometimes I think it has to be better than this life, but I have a feeling you're stuck with us now. I just hope when you wake up you remember everything, because if you don't it's going to take a REALLY long time to explain."

"Here we go," Monica announced, interrupting Sarah's monologue and entering the tent properly. She watched as Sarah let go of Scully's hand to reach out for the food, and Monica handed it to her as her eyes travelled the length of Scully's dark arm. "How is she?" she asked.

"The same," Sarah promised, accepting her biscuits and nibbling on the first one.

Monica remained in the tent and crouched in the small space on the other side of Scully's body. She removed the damp cloth from her forehead and rested it instead across the top of Scully's chest, moving the coolness and moisture around so that hopefully she felt it in at least one place.

"There's a bit of a wind outside," she explained to Sarah. "But this structure should hold. If it collapses, well, sit tight and we'll come rescue you." Sarah chuckled, nodding.

Monica went to leave, and braced herself on Scully's ankle as she turned, balancing in her crouch on the balls of her feet. She just happened to glance at her friend's own bare feet when she saw something which made her breath catch in her throat. She leant closer, not trusting her eyesight, and used her nails to carefully scrape the yellow sand from between Scully's toes. She confirmed quickly that she had not been seeing things in the dim light.

Scully's ten toes were pink.

Monica was not far from the edge of the sheet and crawled right over Scully's legs to get out faster. She stuck her head out and squinted in the bright sun. She knew where Skinner, John and Mulder were sitting with Nicky. She saw their figures and their coloured shirts and managed to take a breath so that she did not sound too panicked when she called out.

"Mulder!"

Mulder could not have turned around faster, she realised. None of them ever called him from the tent. It was just not done. Calling for him from the tent had been implicitly reserved for emergency situations.

"You better come here," she stated, trying to keep her voice calm, but she failed to hide the shake and Mulder scrambled to his feet, running the distance between them.

Monica gasped when she got back inside the tent and stared down at Scully's feet. The soles were pink, and she had colour up to her ankles.

"Oh my God," she whispered.

"What's wrong?" Sarah asked, gripping Scully's hand, her fingers resting against her wrist. "Her pulse is okay. It's okay Monica."

"Honey she's losing the black on her feet," Monica whispered. "You couldn't see, it's okay. I only just noticed and it's fast-"

"Mon get outta the way so I can get in," Mulder huffed from just behind her. "What's going on? What are you whispering?"

"Sorry," she apologised, crawling over Scully and crouching beside Sarah, resting one of her hands on the worried girl's back. "Come in, look at her feet Mulder. Tell me I'm dreaming."

Mulder only poked half his body in. Scully's feet were right near the entrance. He reached for one instinctively and held it. She did not resist, but as he brushed his thumb over the sole just above her arch her leg jolted in reflex. He was used to that reaction. What he was not used to was seeing some evidence of actual blood-flow in her extremities.

"We need more room," he declared, backing out of the tent. "Skinner, get over here!" he ordered. "I need you to hold this sheet up."

"What's going on?" Skinner asked worriedly as he wasted no time in breaching the distance and removing the weights which held the sheet down. He lifted it up and cast a wider space of shade for them to use, and he looked down to see Monica helping Sarah out of the way. She sat in the sand not far from them, wringing her hands together nervously. Skinner held his breath. He did not know whether the commotion was a good or a bad thing. Mulder and Monica were working in silence to roll Scully onto her side and he could barely see her thanks to their constantly moving bodies.

"Get her first aid," Mulder mumbled, and Monica reached for the medical supplies which had been sitting in the sand just above Scully's head. She was the only one with a current condition so they had not been moved far from her.

Mulder was crouched by her neck and Monica held her hands on Scully's shoulder and hips to keep her on her side, all the while staring at the colour which was slowly spreading up her legs. Skinner followed her gaze and saw it too, swearing under his breath. She was pink nearly up to her knees.

"When did this start?" he asked.

"It was not there when I came in to ask Sarah what she wanted for lunch," Monica explained. "It was there when I came back with lunch only a couple of minutes later. It was just her toes then. By the time Mulder got here it was her whole feet. Mulder, what can you see?"

"Augh, the hole is all pussy," he declared with a mixture of disgust and worry. "It wasn't like this before I left her for lunch. I checked before I left and it was the same."

Monica kept one hand on Scully's hips but used the other to pull Scully's arm into her lap, finding her pulse with her fingers. She could see Scully's chest moving and she varied between monitoring her friend's vitals to watching Mulder stare attentively at the green medical bag.

"What are you thinking?" she asked.

"I'm thinking I should open up her neck," he whispered, turning his head to stare at her lower half. He reached down to lift the pants she was wearing up past her knee. Satisfied the blackness was receding he ran his hand along her hip, past Monica's hand, and pushed Scully's tank top up towards her chest so that he could stare at her back.

"Her stomach's only grey," Monica confirmed, leaning over far enough to see that Scully's back also lightening. "Let me see her neck," she urged, bracing herself on Scully as Mulder helped her lean further over. He pulled her orange hair back and pointed to the site of the injection. "Ew," she whispered. The circular wound had never completely healed and it suddenly looked infected. Pus had stretched the skin around the site, which was glistening with blood instead of the hollow, black hole she remembered seeing just that morning.

Through it all Scully was remaining completely still. Monica would have expected some kind of reaction to this sudden change, but she supposed there had been no reaction initially either.

"I dunno, should I?" Mulder asked, staring at her seeking answers she couldn't give him. Monica sighed. What was the worst that could happen if he opened the wound more, she wondered? Well, potentially a lot of things, but a lot of things could go wrong if he didn't. The site of infection was not that close to her spine so there was no risk of Mulder doing serious damage, but then again they did not know what they were dealing with.

But it was Scully, and she had always taken risks to save them. Shouldn't they do the same?

"Maybe just a shallow cut," she agreed, giving Mulder the permission he had been seeking. Monica held Scully still as he turned his back and found her scalpel kit and a handful of gauze patches and tissues he could use to soak up the pus and whatever else felt like coming out. They were not prepared for biological hazards but if they were exposed, so be it.

"Here goes," he announced with a deep breath, having chosen his scalpel. "I'm really sorry Dana," he added, before pressing the scalpel to the swollen skin of her neck. He had a gauze patch angled so that hopefully if anything squirted it did not come anywhere near his face. He only pricked her skin with the tip of the surgical knife, as though he was tentatively popping a blister. He sighed with relief when nothing squirted dramatically towards him. He remembered a few experiences with squirting spores and they had not been fun.

But Scully's problem had nothing to do with spores, he reminded himself seriously as he dabbed at the pus which was oozing from the tiny hole he had made in her skin. The infection and her body's response to it looked incredibly human to him.

Mulder was glad he had watched Scully do so many autopsies. He had a strong enough stomach to handle a little minor surgery even if his hands were shaking.

"How's her colour?" he asked without looking up, concentrating on pushing as much excess fluid out of her neck as he could without hurting her. Monica held up one of Scully's limp hands in reply and Mulder looked up long enough to see bright pink fingertips. He fought back his grin and remained as focussed as possible. She was not back with them yet.

Far from it.

"How's her neck?" Monica asked, watching Mulder abandon one gauze patch and reach for another.

"There's so much coming out of here you'd think it had been building up for days not minutes," he replied. "But it looks better. It looks really red all of a sudden. It's bleeding."

"Good," Monica sighed, not sure whether it really was good or not. She bit her bottom lip, feeling everybody's eyes on them. She glanced over at where she had left Sarah sitting in the sun. She had pulled her knees to her chest and her chin was resting between them. She looked guilty and scared all at once, and Monica realised in their haste nobody had actually explained to her what was happening. "It's okay Sarah," she called, getting her attention. "Dana's still breathing, and she's pink up to her waist-"

"Face is fading," Mulder added softly, interrupting Monica and regaining her attention. Scully's scalp no longer looked black under her hair, she realised. Mulder was fiddling with something in the back of her neck but he had his hands and the wide, white sponge blocking her view. Monica was surprised he could see under all the shade, actually.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Making sure I got it all," he mumbled, not looking back up. Monica wrapped her fingers around Scully's closest wrist and gasped. She did not need to look at her watch to feel the difference between Scully's pulse then and Scully's pulse one minute previously. Before Monica had the chance to mention what she felt, Scully raked in a breath that had a pitch in it, as though it was more of a soft gasp than a real breath.

Mulder stilled behind her and rested a steadying hand on the crown of her head as they waited. She exhaled more quickly than they were used to, but she exhaled for a long time. Once Monica was sure Scully had no more air left in her lungs she began to breathe again, as gentle and deep as she had been but faster, and in time with her faster heart.

"Mulder her pulse is up," she whispered. "Not dangerously fast. I'd say it was nearing normal resting speed."

"Good," he whispered, pulling back from his hunched position and reaching for a wad of tissues. He held them firmly over the back of Scully's neck. Once he had one hand braced there, he used the other to lift the scalpel from where he had abandoned it on the ground. "This is why," he declared, holding the shaking scalpel out over Scully so that Monica could see the metallic chip that rested there. She bit her bottom lip as a mixture of dread and excitement filled her. That chip was never supposed to be removed, she remembered Scully explaining that to her once. But had removing it saved her life, at least for the time being?

She didn't think even Mulder was sure.

"How deep did you cut her?" she asked.

"Barely at all," he promised, shaking his head in shock as he carefully put the scalpel and the chip back on the sand. "I just pierced the top beside the hole and as I was soaking up what came out when it just came out as well. I didn't have a choice. It wedged in the hole and I had to widen the tear to get it out. It was like the chip was just floating in amidst it all her pus and blood. It was like her body finally realised she had something foreign inside her and started trying to attack it." Monica screwed up her nose as Mulder shrugged, his expression innocent and hopeful. He kept a firm hand around the back of her neck and rolled her onto her back towards him, until half of her body was resting against his knees.

As his eyes scanned her body he realised there was almost no darkness left to her skin. Her cheeks and chest were flushed a bright pink but her forehead was white, and as Monica examined her far arm he could see the underside was as white as he remembered. Her fingertips were pink, and he raised her shirt over her stomach to reveal an expanse of white skin. Mulder could not believe it. How long had he been sitting there? Less than fifteen minutes? Less than ten?

"What now?" Skinner asked, having observed the entire scene in silence, still bracing the sheet above his head. Monica and Mulder shared a blank look, both shrugging before turning to stare back down at Scully. They were both so busy looking at her face they did not see her raise one of her knees and plant the flat of her foot onto the sleeping bag. Skinner cleared his throat to get their attention and gestured down her body.

Monica thought Mulder might be sick he went so pale so fast. He stretched his long arm outwards and ran his hand down and around Scully's calf. She moved, and he felt her firm muscle tense under his fingers.

"Dana," he hissed, turning back to her face and resting a desperate hand over her chest, the other still wrapped around her neck. "Dana I know you can hear me. Wake up. Dana."

"Shh," Monica urged, hearing the panic escalating in Mulder's voice. "Give her time."

Mulder nodded, stroking his thumb across her sternum as his fingers splayed above her heart. Monica had been right, he realised. It was beating at what he would consider to be a normal pace for her, and her breath was coming faster, but her eyes remained closed.

"Dana," Monica stated after several minutes, gripping her friend's still unresponsive hand. "Squeeze my hand if you can hear me, Scully. We know you're in there somewhere." She felt no pressure on her hand, but when she saw Scully yawn instead she was far from disheartened. Mulder laughed then, he could not help himself.

"Back onto her side," he told Monica. She helped roll Scully with ease and watched as Mulder again inspected the cut. She caught a glimpse of it without the pus and fluid that had gathered. It was only a small cut. Mulder had only pricked her, in the end, right beside the injection site, to widen it. Nevertheless, he used a large gauze patch and stuck it over her skin. Some of her hair was caught but he did his best to keep the sand away. He would change it once she was more comfortable, but he needed to dress it before she was allowed to lie on her back completely.

Once her wound was covered he backed away, unintentionally kicking the scalpel the chip rested on into the sand. He only briefly considered the ramifications of losing the chip as he gently eased Scully onto her back. Half of her was no longer on the sleeping bag. Without any verbal arrangement, he lifted her under her shoulders and Monica shoved the bag closer to him so that when he lay her back down she was not lying directly on the rough sand. His shaking fingers rested against the pulse of her neck and he leant forward to kiss her forehead when he felt the beat steady and strong beneath her throat.

"It's okay Dana," he told her. "You're doing so much better. Can you hear me?" Without any warning she opened her eyes just once and nodded. Monica covered her mouth with both hands to muffle her gasp of surprise at the wholly unexpected turnaround.

"What the hell just happened?" John asked from somewhere behind them.

"Fucked if I know," Skinner mumbled. Monica leant forward and rested her elbows beside Scully's hip, covering her face with her hands and managing something halfway between a laugh and a sob.

"Scully," Mulder hissed, doing his best to ignore his friends and focus on making sure Scully regained consciousness properly. "Can you open your eyes again? Let me see that ocean blue?" Scully complied and he grinned at her, ignoring the tears gathering in his own eyes. "Do you know who I am?" he asked hopefully, getting the most important question out of the way. Scully nodded again and took a spontaneously deep breath. Mulder stroked her chin happily. "Would you like some water?" he asked. She nodded again and Monica reached for the bottle they had been using to wet the cloth all day.

Mulder wrapped his arm again underneath Scully's shoulders and lifted her into a half-sitting position against him, taking the bottle from Monica with his free hand and bringing it to Scully's lips. He tilted it carefully to control the amount of water she got. She took a few grateful gulps before pressing her lips together and shaking her head, signalling to him that she was done. He lay her back down on her sleeping bag and stroked her hair away from her suddenly sweating forehead.

"Hot," she whispered. He smiled widely at the sound of her voice. "Mulder, what, where are we?"

"What's the last thing you remember?" he asked cautiously. Her eyes fluttered shut and she sighed, reaching blindly for his hand. Mulder took it in both of his and brought her fingers to his lips as he waited patiently. It was really her, he told himself. She was taking the time to really think. That was his Scully.

"Night time," she hissed after a minute of silence. "In the desert. We're alone. Last night...our last night in the desert before real land. Ocean in the distance. We're near the sea again. I want to...say how happy I am then, I dunno, flashes and...choking. I was choking."

"It's okay," he assured her as her voice cracked and tears began to dribble from between her closed lashes. "It's okay, that's the last thing that happened. You haven't lost your memory honey, it's okay. That was two nights ago. You've been unconscious, so just rest."

"Sleepy," she drawled. Mulder smiled, leaning over and pressing his lips tenderly to hers.

"You sleep," he urged. "I'm very, very happy as well Dana. I'll be right here when you wake up again next." Scully hummed and rubbed her lips together as her head and neck relaxed and tilted to the side. Mulder cupped a hand over his mouth to cover his shock and the sudden quiver of his lips and chin. Don't cry, he ordered himself. Don't cry, don't cry. She's FINE.

It was only two hours later when Scully reopened her eyes and looked up to see Monica peering seriously towards her.

"Why are you staring at me?" she asked. Monica broke into a grin.

"You know who I am?"

"Of course I know who you are!" Scully huffed, sitting up and frowning when Monica suddenly wrapped an arm around her back to help her. Now that Scully thought about it, she realised her legs and arms felt weak. She was not sure they could support her weight. She looked at Monica curiously, and then around at the strange sheet-tent they were under. "What the hell is going on?" she asked. Monica slowly let her go so that she sat on her own.

"Do you remember waking up earlier this afternoon?"

"I dunno," Scully replied cautiously, reaching back to scratch her neck but finding only a loosely stuck gauze patch. Her fingers pressed against it and she winced when she realised how tender her skin was. "What happened?" she asked Monica with wide, suddenly fearful eyes. "I was hurt?"

"Oh boy," Monica laughed. "This is going to be fun. I'm really glad I made some notes otherwise I don't think you would believe us. Mulder's just gone to relieve himself and help John with Nicky. He'll be right back. How are you feeling?"

"Fine," Scully mumbled. "A little tired. Are my sunnies around here somewhere?" Monica watched in shock as Scully easily got onto her hands and knees and began searching for her backpack. She froze when she spotted the medical supplies and the box sitting opened just behind where her head had been. She went to crawl towards it but as her right hand landed in the sand she yelped and pulled back, staring at her fingers as she sat up. Monica saw her index finger bleeding before Scully put it into her mouth. With her left hand she reached for one of the empty gauze packets that had been left and began scraping through the sand.

Monica felt instantly guilty when she realised Scully had cut her finger on the scalpel they had abandoned. Scully held it up and glared at her.

"Oops?" she offered hopefully. Scully did not smile. Monica knew how sacred her medical supplies were to her. "Hey don't blame me. Talk to your boyfriend about that."

"Help me up," Scully urged around her finger still in her mouth, stretching out her left arm out for Monica to hold onto. Monica stepped over the sleeping bag and wrapped an arm around Scully's waist as she got onto her feet. Scully could just stand at the highest part of the tent right against the raft but Monica had to hunch beside her. She reached forward and pulled the sheet aside, both of them wincing at the bright sun which assaulted them. Scully removed her finger from her mouth long enough to talk. "Mulder!" she shouted firmly into the distance, her sensitive eyes shut to the sun. "Get your ass over here, wherever you are!"

"Jesus Christ!" Skinner exclaimed from just in front of them.

"Sunglasses, Skinner," Monica asked softly. He rattled around their campsite amongst Monica and Scully's possessions before coming up with both.

"Scully!" Mulder called as he ran up ahead of John and Nicky, just as Scully put her sunglasses on with her good hand, still sucking on her finger. "You're up, I-"

"You left a goddamn scalpel in the sand, are you INSANE?" she exclaimed angrily, cutting him off. Mulder froze two metres from her and stared at her with an open mouth as she held out her finger. "Someone could have been hurt a lot worse than this. You know everything goes back in the box WHERE YOU FOUND IT, after being cleaned mind you, which it probably wasn't. What were you THINKING?"

Mulder hesitated and caught Monica's eyes as Scully put her finger back in her mouth. Monica was doing her best not to laugh because Scully was completely serious in her anger and she did not want to make her angrier by giggling. Mulder scratched the beard at his jaw.

"Uh, I was thinking that you had just opened your eyes after nearly two days completely unconscious and uh, what was the other thing? Oh yeah, completely BLACK."

"What?" Scully asked, her voice muffled, her anger fading to confusion.

"How deep did you cut your finger honey?" he asked sweetly, taking a cautious step forward as she pouted and reluctantly removed it once again from her mouth. She stretched her palm out to him in an invitation for him to see for himself. He had caused it, after all, and he hadn't denied it either. "Ow," Mulder whispered when he saw the blood seeping from the deep cut. "Are you going to have to stitch that? How much weight did you put on it?"

"Enough," she replied. "And 'I' won't be stitching anything, but I might get Shannon to, OW, Jesus Mulder, don't TOUCH it!"

"Sorry!" he exclaimed, laughing as she glared at him. He could not help it. The expression on her face was so insanely pissed off at him but he was so completely relieved to see her standing up just hours after she had regained her colour and consciousness. He wondered if she would try to hit him if he hugged her. It probably was not a good time to tell her he also lost her microchip in the sand either. That would have to wait. Hesitantly, Monica let her go and Mulder saw Scully's balance waver in the uneven sand.

Screw it, he decided, closing the distance between them and wrapping his arms securely around her waist before she fell over, not giving her the opportunity to pull away.

"Mulder," she drawled against his shoulder as he lifted her feet off the ground. "Mulder put me down. That's not going to work. You always think that works but it doesn't. Do you know how irresponsible it is to leave a scalpel half-buried in sand? What if Nicky had been playing there?"

"I'm sorry baby," he whispered against her, pressing a gentle kiss to her cheek and bouncing her in his arms like a toy.

"Mulder," she repeated, although she had softened a little, he realised. "Put me down."

"Not until you say, 'I forgive you Fox'," he teased.

"I could kick you somewhere you might regret."

"No, you can't," he reminded her. "You can barely stand. How's your neck?"

"Sore," she pouted, relaxing her hold on him. Mulder let her feet rest back on the ground but still did not let her go. She sighed. "Okay," she groaned. "I 'forgive' you."

"What was that?" Mulder taunted against her.

"Fox," she huffed. "Now let me go, goddammit, and go and clean up that mess you made!"

"Don't you want to know what happened?" Mulder asked, releasing himself from the hug. He kept an arm around her and led her to the nearest sleeping bag which happened to be Monica and John's, sitting her down on it and crouching in front of her as she continued to pout and suck on her injury.

"Monica said she had notes," she mumbled. "I'll read those while you go and CLEAN UP YOUR MESS. I left the scalpel on the bag. Make sure it gets put away." Mulder grinned widely at her. "What?" she exclaimed. "Why do you keep looking at me like that?"

"I'll be right back then," he promised with a laugh, reaching forward to tousle her knotted hair. He stood and walked slowly to the tent, laughing loudly. Scully glared at his back before turning to where Skinner and Sarah were sitting in front of her, staring with open mouths in her direction.

"I'm going to go and...get something for that finger, let you relax," Skinner announced, standing quickly and following Mulder. Sarah giggled.

"Are you really there Dana?" she asked. Scully grunted in reply, removing her finger from her mouth and examining the cut more closely. It was gaping. She was going to kill Mulder.


	5. Chapter 5

Five

Scully stared intently as Mulder attempted to sew stitches across the two centimetre gash on her right index finger as the sun set. She was instructing him and she thought he was doing a good job. So far. She clamped her jaw shut as another jolt of pain travelled all the way up her arm to wrap around her chest.

"Last one," he promised her, feeling her tense as her arm rested across his bent knees. Behind them, Monica was holding a torch directly onto the worksite. After half an hour and no real improvement in the loss of blood, Scully had insisted Mulder stitch her up. Nobody else had been game, and Monica was certainly grateful she was only in charge of the light.

"Where did you learn how to do that?" John asked curiously as he leant forward to observe.

"He's watched me close a bunch of times," Scully replied for Mulder so that he didn't lose concentration. "Although at the time we were always discussing the case so thoroughly I thought he wasn't paying attention."

"That's a bit different to 'this'," Mulder scoffed. He still wanted to do a good job, and everyone was watching. "I should really have my glasses on. I don't know if it's any good."

"It looks fine," she promised in a whisper, managing a soft smile as he glanced up at her with worry. "It's not serious. Just needs a bit of help. They're the smallest stitches I had."

"SCULLY!"

Scully and everyone else turned their heads when they heard Gibson's voice. A flashlight was bouncing around in the distance amidst the fading light and she smiled when she realised they were running. She felt like yelling out that there was no hurry and that she was fine, because she felt normal and did not understand why everyone was still staring at her. She was yet to see Monica's notes. Everybody had been way too busy fussing over her to bother explaining.

"Hey-" she began, cut off when Gibson collapsed onto his knees beside her and wrapped his arms around her in a tight hug. Scully's mouth dropped open in surprise as her free hand touched his back. She had not been touched by so many people since after Nicky had been born and even then everyone had been hugging and she had not been the centre of attention.

"I was so excited to hear you!" Gibson told her, pulling back and grinning at her, letting his eyes wander down her body the same way everyone else had been looking at her. It made her supremely uncomfortable. Nobody looked at her body like that except Mulder, and she felt exposed under their gaze. Mulder was in fact the only person not looking at her body. He was the only person treating her as though she had just cut her finger and nothing else had happened. She thought she might have scared him by yelling at him earlier, but she had been surprised and the cut had hurt, and he was certainly making it up to her now.

"Don't move," he mumbled suddenly. "I think it's done. What do you think?" Gibson let Scully go so she could lean closer to him.

"Fine," she declared with a sigh as he reached for the bottle of water held upright between his feet. He poured a small sip's worth of water over his handiwork to wash away the sand and blood and winced at his hatchet job. It certainly was not professional, but then again it was only a small wound and it would heal. It had only been gaping a little, but without any butterfly tape left they'd had no other option. "Thank you," Scully whispered, catching his critical eyes and smiling. "Don't worry Mulder. I'll put myself on antibiotics for a week but it looks fine. It's just smarting."

"What happened?" Shannon asked as she looked on.

"That's what I'd like to know," Scully assured her with a laugh. "Nobody's told me anything yet. Where have the two of you been?"

Skinner quickly explained what had happened for Shannon and Gibson's benefit, making sure even Gibson had the whole series of events and not just the snippets he might have heard from various individuals in the group. He hesitated when he got to the part about Scully's neck, glancing at Mulder and cautiously handing him the opportunity to finish.

"Well," Mulder continued with a sigh, reaching out and resting a hand on Scully's shoulder, his fingers stretching to finger the edge of the patch still protecting the wound. "The hole got all infected, and-"

"Sorry, what hole?" Scully asked, reaching behind her to touch his hand and her sore neck. "And what's this about me getting my colour 'back'? Where did it go?"

"Here," Monica explained, putting the torch beside them and hurrying to her nearby bag. She retrieved a notebook that was towards the top and handed it to Scully, who placed it in her lap and started flicking through. "It's about halfway in, the last few entries." Scully nodded, aware she was not the only one keeping a journal of their travels.

Scully froze when she saw Monica's drawings. Patches of the paper had been shaded with pencil to varying degrees, ranging from a pale grey to as deeply black as heavy pressure on the pencil would allow. Time was measured in 'minutes since' and broken up into quarter-hours. That appeared to be how often they made a note of her pulse and breathing and the colour of her skin. Scully stared open-mouthed as she read. In addition to the very basic attempts at recording her vitals Monica had made notes about how her skin felt, her reflexes, the dilation of her pupils and this 'hole' that was supposedly at the back of her neck. The drawing of it was a simple, black circle that was wholly coloured in, representing some sort of bottomless void, or at least the appearance of one.

"What's it from?" she asked curiously.

"You were injected with something called a concealer," Shannon explained. "The chip in your neck was emitting a signal. The supersoldiers in the area were afraid the aliens would track it. We weren't able to discover much about what you were injected with, but since you didn't die straight away we were hopeful you would recover. If they had wanted to kill you they could have."

"My memory sort of fades out around there," Scully admitted, frowning and tapping the open page. "My systems were maintained at a depressed level for a long time. I didn't stop breathing?"

"Not even once," Mulder answered proudly, grinning at her when she glanced at him. She offered her own, cautious smile, before turning her attention back to the rest of the group.

"Well, I'm fine now," she promised them. "I'm not up for running a marathon but I think I'll be okay with some rest. The cut's nothing, really. I think I was more shocked than anything else. Uh...so is that it, then?"

"There's a tiny little problem I'm reluctant to mention," Mulder mumbled, blushing when she smirked at him.

"Why's that?"

"He thinks you'll yell at him again," Gibson teased, listening to Scully laugh. She rested a hand on Mulder's shoulder and squeezed.

"I won't," she promised softly. "What's the problem?"

"I was explaining how your neck was infected," he continued. She nodded, listening seriously. "Well around the hole got really pussy really fast and started bleeding, this is while you were getting your colour back, and I had to make a little incision with the scalpel to help clean the area, which is why I had the scalpel in the first place. I guess I got so excited about you waking up I kicked it into the sand. Thing is, while I was doing all that, your chip sort of...came out in it all."

"It what?" Scully asked in a stunned whisper, reaching back to cup her neck. "It came out?" Mulder nodded.

"I swear I didn't 'take' it out. It was like it was being pushed out, Scully. So the thing is, I caught it on the edge of the scalpel and I showed it to Monica. She can vouch for that. And then I put the scalpel on the sand. Then uh, somewhere around the time when you opened your eyes I kicked it, and that's where it stayed, and I haven't been able to find the chip. It's so small and there's been such a commotion around the area this afternoon...I'm not sure we will be able to find it."

"Okay," Scully sighed, shaking her head. "Well, there's nothing we can do then. If what you're describing is right then I uh, maybe whatever I was injected with forced my body to reject the chip. That can't be helped. That's just a fact. If my cancer comes back then so be it, Mulder, okay?" He nodded silently and she again squeezed his shoulder. "Okay?" she pressed.

"Yeah," he sighed. "It's okay. I'm just glad you're okay now."

"I seriously don't feel sick," she laughed with a wide smile. "Apart from the fact I think I must have sand in the cut at my neck because it's hurting a bit, but maybe you can take care of that as well."

"Whatever you say Doc," he teased with a chuckle. "How about I do that while Gibson and Shannon tell us why they're back so soon. We weren't expecting them for a couple more days."

"Well get comfortable," Shannon told them. "We've got a long story."

xxx 

"The human colonies are further south," Shannon began once night had fallen. The full moon provided enough light that they could all see where they were sitting without requiring any torches or lamps. Monica and John were sitting on their sleeping bag with Nicky asleep in Monica's lap. Skinner and Sarah were on one side on their individual bags, Sarah lying on her stomach facing them with her chin propped in her hands.

On the other side of Monica and John, Mulder was sitting back propped up against his sleeping bag with one arm around Scully's stomach as she sat between his spread legs, reclining against him. Shannon had a feeling Scully would not be able to stay awake for the whole story, but that was okay because she knew she would be repeating it at least once regardless. It was something they were all going to need to hear more than once.

"When I decided to take us inland, my thought was that I could smuggle you in," she continued. "But because of the terrain we had no choice but to move to the coast. Right now we are camping just outside a protected military base that I believe is being used as a border checkpoint more than any true supersoldier facility. Now I'm going to explain everything I know and Gibson will be helping, and then we have some choices to make about...where everybody wants to be and what's going to need to happen."

"Explain away," Mulder permitted casually.

"Gibson and I met with a woman by the name of General Felicity Braddon. Do you know of her Mulder?"

"I recognise the name," he replied. "When I was doing my own investigations a few years ago I came across her name in relation to the supersoldier project. I never met her."

"She worked out of Mount Weather in Virginia, the facility you broke into later in that year. She has an office here now. I'm not sure who she pissed off or why but she is no longer based at the primary research facility. She was more than just involved with the project. She supervised my own transformation into a supersoldier. Out here it seems as though she has been put in charge of some newer creations, new supersoldiers which she is training to patrol the perimeter. They were so afraid of your signal, Scully, because they are not actually 'meant' to be here. And that's a big problem."

"What do you mean they're not meant to be here?" Skinner asked. "Where are they meant to be?"

"South of the Equator," she replied. "See, I have a little confession to make. I never told any of you the whole truth. It was not because I did not want to, but it was because I did not have all the facts. Until we got further south I could never be sure of what had really happened. When I left my post to help stop the water contamination a few years ago I was cut out and abandoned by the project. Or so they thought, because I still had friends there who were willing to help me, humans involved in the project who were as disgraced by it as I was."

"But they wouldn't have been able to pass on everything, right?" Sarah asked.

"Exactly. But I am guilty of not telling you everything that I had been able to find out. And please forgive Gibson because I was able to keep it from him too, mostly. You see...The noise and the light and the destruction to DC and other city centres were not done by aliens from another planet. It was done by humans and those who are not human working on the supersoldier project as part of something which we nicknamed the Colonisation Convention."

"What?" Skinner asked, stunned. "You're saying that was not an alien invasion?"

"It was not," Shannon repeated. "The virus that was released was created to destroy man with the help of technologies that are extraterrestrial to man but which were known to the supersoldier project."

"Humans destroyed this country?" Scully asked, stunned as she tried to sit up straighter in Mulder's arms. Her back was tired though, and she allowed him to support her as she stared in shock at Shannon, remembering her mother dead in her upstairs bedroom, remembering the body of the woman from whom she had stolen her watch. Shannon only smiled ruefully.

"Humans destroyed the world, Dana," she answered. "You know about the anticipated end-date, correct? John told me that Mulder explained sometime during their initial trek to Virginia?"

"Yes," John confirmed. "We all know."

"Did you think it was odd that a date which had apparently been set in time for so many decades was brought forward?"

"You're saying there was no alien invasion," Scully summarised. "That this was a supersoldier tactic to take over the world?"

"That's where the Colonisation Convention comes in," Shannon explained. "I wasn't sure of the dimensions until I met with Braddon and Gibson was able to read her mind as she attempted to evade answering my questions. The aliens who had begun to settle themselves on this planet were in competition with the supersoldier program for territory. They wanted to mine the land for resources more than to colonise it, and the supersoldier program wanted to expand so that the colonisation of the future could be combated. Bear in mind that the supersoldier program is still run by a large number of humans, with whom the aliens have always had a rather unusual degree of communication. You're familiar with the early promises made regarding colonisation?"

Everyone nodded slowly. Even if they had not been a party to the early investigations, as Mulder and Scully had, they had been allowed plenty of time over the past year to catch up on everything they had missed.

"A little over a year ago it came to a flashpoint," Shannon continued. "The aliens were unhappy with the expansion of the supersoldier program because they do not have access to or the means to transport enough magnetite to kill us all. Scully, you believe it came to earth via meteor in the earth's early stages and that is very likely. It did not come directly from the aliens who would hope to kill us to truly colonise the planet."

"So you're saying they can't kill you," Mulder stated. "Because short of destroying the world they want to use for their own gain, you lot will always find a way to put yourselves back together."

"Yeah and I'll tell you from experience we come back to life pretty pissed off," she teased.

"And so this flashpoint was, what?" he asked. "They threatened to invade early if you didn't stop expanding the project?"

"Well 'I' was not personally involved in this, I know it all second-hand," she assured them. "But basically, yes. The supersoldier program told them they were already too far advanced and that we had the means on earth to defeat any invasion. It was sort of throwing all the delays they had allowed the people here back in their faces. Neither side really wanted it to come to a war, so they did what they have always done over this matter; they negotiated."

"Because that always worked so well in the past," Scully deadpanned. Mulder chuckled against her as everyone else giggled and smirked. Shannon rolled her eyes but also allowed her lips to tilt upwards. She was glad for the others that Scully was doing so well; she was their ticket to safety, after all.

"To cut a long treaty short, the aliens got the northern hemisphere and the supersoldiers got the southern hemisphere," she announced. "Technically we are still in alien territory and we will be until we get to South America. But there may be a way to avoid another long trip-"

"Hang on, hang on," John interrupted. He seemed to be the only person capable of speaking. "They divvied up the world half and half?"

"Pretty much," Gibson promised him.

"How do we even know there 'are' aliens then?" John asked. "The supersoldiers could just be making it up as part of their own plan to take over. I haven't seen an alien all year and we've been walking around half the country!"

"They didn't want to live with us, in the end," Shannon explained. "I don't know if you noticed, but the planet's not in the best shape. They took what they wanted while we were all underground and went home. They were gone long before we all came back up. They were not affected by the virus released by the supersoldier program to eliminate the humans."

"And this agreement is worldwide?" Monica asked. Shannon nodded. "There must be humans left then."

"There are, in the southern hemisphere," Shannon continued. "That was part of the Convention. You were all...included in the deal."

"What?" Scully hissed.

"The virus that was released was a means of genetic harvesting. You saw the remains Scully. I know you can believe something like that."

"But, well yes I can," she agreed. "But you're saying that a huge portion of the world's population was traded in. Was that why they got the northern hemisphere?"

"That was one of the reasons."

"That's disgusting," Scully spat.

"I know," Shannon stated calmly. "But that is what has happened. The agreement was put in place early enough to allow the program the time to spread itself throughout the southern hemisphere in preparation for saturation. A lot of people have been killed in those parts of the world also."

"What was the point of all this?" Mulder asked. "Was it just a matter of empirical territory?"

"Yeah I don't understand," Monica agreed. "Supersoldiers should not, by nature, strive to expand their territory in that way because, and correct me if I'm wrong, but they don't have any primal desire to reproduce or continue as a species the way other species do. "

"No, but the humans behind the program do," Shannon pointed out. "For the program it is more about the influence of power. Personally, I do believe that it will fall apart."

"Why do you believe that?" Monica pressed.

"It's an unsustainable mentality. I agree with you. The supersoldiers being created now, well you met them the other night, they're drones. They follow orders and they are very much military men. They were intended for combat. They still are. The supersoldier program expanded to combat plans for alien colonisation."

"Were they successful with this 'Convention'?" Skinner asked.

"I don't think so," she replied evenly. "But that is something the people we met with could not know for themselves. I believe the project is in danger of self-destructing because of the lack of daily life these supersoldiers have. Early man socialised. Supersoldiers do not need to socialise. They can work in a team if that team is put together for them and they are given roles, but they cannot form those relationships on their own, and they would be just as happy wandering around the desert by themselves looking for something to kill.

"I think there are now too many supersoldiers and they're going to get bored. They are being moved around by humans and they will recognise that they are stronger than those people and if something happened to those people, say, if they met with horrible accidents, then the supersoldiers could not be commanded as a group and would be much more vulnerable."

"Gibson," Skinner taunted. "Did you know all of this before you left with Shannon a couple of days ago?"

"I knew the possibility of some of it, but she kept most of it from me," he promised. "I had heard various things about all of this before, but I never got an opportunity to confirm any of it until now. Shannon and I have traded what we each know and what we found out to form a complete picture for you. Well, as much as we're aware of anyway."

"It's important they not find out what he can do," Shannon added. "We have the ability to store thoughts without thinking of them first. It's something you all cannot do. If you say you're not going to think about something, you first define it in your mind before putting it away. I don't need to do that, and none of you really needed to know these things before. It would not have changed anything."

"Why did you want to go inland?" Scully asked tiredly. "How could you know this would be here when according to you we should still be in designated alien territory?"

"The superesoldiers are going to breach the Convention," Gibson replied. "I heard it in General Braddon. They are going to be moving north again."

"Which is technically another problem for them," Shannon pointed out. "Humans are hunter-gatherers. Supersoldiers are hunters only. They have no need to gather or accumulate or nurture. But there is also nothing left in the northern hemisphere for them to hunt, except each other."

"How does this affect us?" Monica asked seriously. "Where are we meant to go?"

"This is really cool," Gibson promised, hurriedly taking over. "You know the early members of the Project? Mister Spender and all the old guys who took me?" Mulder and Scully both nodded under the moonlight. "Well they were always afraid of me, remember?"

"We remember," Mulder whispered seriously.

"They sacrificed family members because they were afraid, and they were working on a vaccine to save themselves because they were afraid of what they were creating, and when they finally did create the desired hybrid they tried to destroy it because they never intended to keep their promises to the aliens and they were afraid. Well, that's like a basic human self-preservation thing. Only truly crazy people are not afraid to wield power. General Braddon is just as afraid as those men were. And there are others who created this project who also wish to save themselves."

"They agreed to the Convention on the understanding that while aliens stripped the north's resources they would survive," Shannon continued. "And they also knew that because they had control of the supersoldier program they were in no immediate danger from those they controlled. But 'they' are human, and they need other humans to assist them in controlling the army they created, in breeding and training and in living their daily lives. They are still reluctant to completely surrender. They needed somewhere for their families to be. And they allowed humans to survive in parts of the world."

"But when the supersoldiers get out of control as you suggested won't they just start picking off humans?" John asked. "Because I gotta tell you Shannon, I'm sort of over being chased by those things."

"John, John, John," Shannon teased gently. "Are you forgetting the one thing the humans involved with the program know about the supersoldiers that the supersoldiers do not know about themselves?"

"The magnetite," Monica answered. "They don't know?"

"There's no reason to tell them that. The safe areas are in magnetite rich portions of the land, but that's not where you'll 'all' be going. I can't go myself for obvious reasons and I can only get some of you in."

"What about the rest of us?" Sarah asked, nervous. "What do you mean 'some' of us?"

"The magnetite colonies are provided places for families and there are certain criteria which need to be met before a person can be permitted residency. First, they must be human, which is no problem for any of you. Secondly, they must be healthy. Sarah, I do not think your eyesight will be a problem if you are accompanied by another. However, thirdly-" Shannon stopped and sighed, glancing at Mulder and Scully. "The people who set this up intended for these colonies to expand so that their families could survive, much the same way those who first created the hybrid also created a vaccine. As such, only those of child bearing age and capacity can be given residency. No exceptions. I'm sorry."

"Oh no," Monica whispered, turning to look at Mulder and Scully, who did not flinch at the news. Shannon had eased them all into it really, so Monica was sure they had sensed it coming. "You can't smuggle them in somehow?" she asked desperately.

"No, and I really tried to talk my way around it but we could never get Dana past a medical exam. But if they agree to it, I have something else for them," Shannon announced, staring at her companions and attempting a reassuring smile. "You see the magnetite colonies are not neutral territory. They are safe for the time being, and they are policed and run like any other human colony. But they are not where decisions are made. The fact that Mulder and Scully cannot have children and their background in the health industries allows me to get them what I suppose you could call diplomatic residency in neutral territory."

"Diplomatic?" Skinner asked. "They're not politicians and neither of them speaks another language."

"Let me explain first," Shannon assured him gently. "As you can imagine, when the Colonisation Convention was being discussed, there needed to be a neutral ground upon which negotiations could take place, as it's rather difficult to communicate between solar systems. There needed to be an area where both parties could come together without fear of attack. Because of the international nature of these negotiations, you can imagine the fights. Everybody wanted it to be their country so that their people could be spared, and of course the aliens wanted as many humans included in the deal as possible. Compromises had to be made and in the end the neutral ground reverted to what it had been in the days of the previous project, before it was destroyed nearly a decade ago...by Mulder and Scully."

"Antarctica?" Skinner asked, getting there first, or perhaps daring to speak first.

"The aliens insisted since it was obvious the humans in charge of the supersoldier program still carried national loyalties. The site had been used for many decades without interruption and with a lot of success until Mulder introduced the virus into the system."

"But they needed the sub-zero temperatures to control hybridisation," Mulder explained. "The way you tell it, that plan is no longer in play, so there wouldn't be a need to return a base to that spot."

"You misunderstand," Shannon replied gently. "The aliens have not returned a base to Antarctica. A communications base has been set up there by humans entrusted not with control of the supersoldier program but with the implementation of the treaty. When you destroyed that base, the aliens I'm sure were pretty pissy. They felt they could no longer trust the conspirators. This time around they have INSISTED that they deal with a neutral party, and that is where the 'real' reason humans have survived comes in; the all-important middle men and peacekeepers who are responsible for administration of the treaty."

"So what," Mulder huffed. "If one side breaches its responsibilities they write a nasty letter from Antarctica about how they breached article A-X-512.22(b) or some bullshit and that the humans are very, very angry and could you pretty-please rectify it so that we don't tell the other side what you did and so they don't retaliate somehow?"

"Is that what you think the UN does?" Sarah asked perceptively, giggling. "That's funny."

"What I'm saying," Mulder continued seriously. "Is that the human race in this situation is powerless to police the treaty. I don't understand why the aliens would insist on such a thing, realising that the supersoldier program could go ahead anyway. What do aliens care about trust?"

"I think this particular race cares quite a lot about it," Scully mentioned, her voice gentle against Mulder's chest. "They went to a lot of trouble in the early years to coordinate some sort of plan when they never really had to. They trusted us, US, with their technology when really they were vastly superior and could have come any time. They actually went to the trouble to agree to find a way to allow us to survive. And they were deceived...by us, by our people. They certainly are more trusting than a supersoldier. I think...I think 'I' would trust them more than a supersoldier. I mean a real one, Shannon."

"Thanks," Shannon chuckled. "You're right also, Dana. Nobody involved in the supersoldier program is in Antarctica. Think of it in terms of...in a divorce, a really nasty one, it's the lawyers who handle everything. Well the humans are the lawyers. There is no need for the clients to talk to each other."

"Did humans draw up the agreement?" Scully asked curiously.

"They mediated. The people responsible for assisting in that neutral role are already in Antarctica and have been since a communications base was established there. It's not on any map; an international secret. But the people there are not there because they're from certain countries or because they know about the past conspiracy or the supersoldier program. They're not career politicians and it's a very small settlement there but it is sustained by alien technology. There are less than fifty people there, and in addition there are surely scientists who were there at the time and fisherman who had been in the area who uh, had no place else to go. I'm really not sure of the dynamics."

"What do they do there?" Sarah asked. "Sit around waiting for the aliens to call with a question for them to pass on to the supersoldiers?" Shannon laughed at the joke and Sarah grinned, proud of herself for keeping up with the vastly more experienced adults in the group.

"Well what do you do when you no longer have to pay taxes?" Shannon posed. "I'd imagine they don't do very much at all. They of course all know why they're there. I don't know very much about it, but I have been told that it's a harsh existence, and when we were deliberating about where would be the best places for you all, I happened to discover they've had some trouble there."

"What sort of trouble?" Scully asked warily. She remembered her various trips to cold places with Mulder on the X Files. Those trips had always been full of excitement, always full of fear, and always testing their trust in one another. By the way Shannon kept glancing at them as she spoke, Scully did not think she needed to ask the 'real' question she was holding back. Shannon would get there in her own time. Gibson was not even bothering to step in.

"As I'm sure you already know, the people in charge of these plans have never been bright. In their haste to organise the treaty and make sure the supersoldier program was in place to cope with any attack outside the treaty's rules when the aliens came, they forgot a little something." She paused, smirking at Scully. "They forgot to send a doctor to Antarctica."

"They FORGOT?" Skinner exclaimed. "So there are people down there that just lived through winter without any medical staff?"

"There's a nurse," Shannon replied with an innocent shrug. "Hey, don't look at me. After living with you all and seeing how much you rely on the woman sitting over there, when I found out I blanched too. I believe they may also require the assistance of a psychologist."

"Mulder's a criminal profiler," Scully explained. "He's not a treating psychologist."

"Now maybe he is," Shannon told her with a smug smirk. "This is all up to you. There are positions available in the processing centres. It's where you are all going to have to go, although you may not be in the same ones. However, they're winding up now as most of the survivors have already shown themselves. We're the last if not one of the last, because we have been delayed for various reasons. If you were at a processing centre in a medical role, upon closure of the centre you would be relocated to somewhere within the supersoldier program. That means...you would be overseeing research and development or breeding."

"How do they do that?" Sarah asked, screwing up her nose in disgust.

"Under a microscope, in tubes, in tubs, in tanks. There are no parents. The genetic information comes from a bank, a database from which the other day I supervised the removal of Dana's name. In any random sequence, it will never come up."

"Thank you," Scully whispered seriously.

"It was the last I could do," Shannon assured her. "Besides, you would never make it onto a medical staff if your name was to come up with something like that."

"What about my name?" Mulder asked. "Are people going to have a problem with it?"

"No," Shannon promised. "You've been forgotten."


	6. Chapter 6

Six

Scully was exhausted but had forced herself to listen to every word out of Shannon's mouth. Every time she made another 'announcement' Mulder tightened his arms around her. When she had started talking about the attributes needed to survive in the colonies and hinting that fertility may be one he had started stroking her abdomen in the dark and had pulled her closer. She had not objected. She had felt sick then. She had thought they would be abandoned, or that they would have to concoct some elaborate scheme to get past security, something Shannon obviously thought was not possible.

Then she had started talking about Antarctica. The alternative was not something Scully wanted to be involved with. She wanted to be as far away from the supersoldiers as possible, and at least on neutral ground she would be. Theoretically. For a while. And she could be a doctor again. She could actually do something. Mulder could help people again; he had been prevented from working for three years prior to the invasion. He deserved that opportunity too.

But what was really there for them? How did they live there indefinitely? How did the environment there cope with their presence? What sort of people were there, to be involved yet not be involved? How did somebody satisfy that quota? Had the aliens given them a list of the types of people they 'would' speak to, as opposed to the types they wouldn't? And from which countries? What if they went there and everyone was French? Scully's French was horrendous. Her German was better and that was really saying something.

Ich habe keine unruhe.

She pushed that nightmare quickly away.

Antarctica, she thought. She did not remember very much about Antarctica. Mulder always told her she had been such a little smartass he'd had his heart in his throat the whole time, and she knew at least one half of that statement was true. Would going back be too hard for either of them? Were they going to be living in some sort of alien building? If aliens even 'had' buildings, she reasoned. Shannon had said alien technologies were used. For what, for power? Power would be nice.

Heating.

"Where do they get the food from there?" Mulder asked curiously just above her head. He was absentmindedly still stroking her stomach and she was not sure if he was paying enough attention to her to remember how sleepy that always made her. She allowed her eyes to shut as she listened.

"I think most of it's cultivated there in special establishments," Shannon answered. "But as I have never been there before, I'm not sure. Some of it may come from the colonies."

"Oh yeah and how do 'they' get food?" John asked. "Who's growin' the wheat? Or mining the petroleum to fuel the boats to get food from place to place?"

"No such thing as petroleum anymore, John," Shannon answered simply. "Except in the oil deposits in the southern hemisphere which would not have been mined by the aliens as part of the Convention. The colonies are quite large and there are means of transport, but it won't be what you're used to, and life will be a lot more hands-on. No ordering pizza on a Friday night."

"I do not!" John exclaimed as Shannon rolled her eyes.

"I trained with you," she reminded him. "I know what Monica must put up with Doggett. No more motor racing for you, and the Superbowl is but a dream."

"Oh shut up," he huffed, chuckling when she smirked.

"Buddy she has you pegged," Mulder teased, jiggling his knee with amusement but then realising Scully had become very still in his arms. He stopped and turned his face down to look at the top of her head. It was very late at night, and that morning she had barely been alive. Hell, that afternoon she had barely been alive. It had been a very long day.

"Is she out?" Monica whispered suddenly, having noticed his attention drawn to the still woman in his arms. He nodded silently, careful not to change his hold of her. He did not want to startle her awake, not in case she was having nightmares or still not feeling well.

"We can continue this in the morning," Shannon assured the group, her voice also suddenly lowered. She glanced at Gibson. "What's the last thing she heard?"

"Just a minute ago," he promised. "Just you joking about petroleum and she was asleep."

"Where is she on Antarctica?" Shannon asked.

"Hey, hey," Mulder hissed before Gibson could answer. "No, I don't want to know this way. It's not fair to her. We'll talk privately, together, and get back to you tomorrow Shannon."

He squeezed Scully's arm to try to rouse her once the decision was made that they all go to bed. He whispered her name when he felt her coming to, and she turned her head around to look up at him. She winced at the pain in her neck and frowned.

"What?" she asked.

"You fell asleep," he told her with a whisper.

"No-d-n't," she slurred, returning her head to where it had rested against his chest and bicep and seeming to fall instantly back to sleep. Mulder chuckled, reluctantly pushing her off him and hauling her to her feet with his large hands supporting her under her arms. "Ah, Mulder," she groaned. "I was sleeping."

"Come for a walk with me before I tuck you in," he urged in an overly sweet voice.

"Don't wanna walk," she pouted, stalking out in front of him for only a few steps before she toppled on the uneven sand. Mulder swore as he leant over and caught her around the waist.

"Now, now," he laughed once he was holding her upright again. "Think about your blood pressure. You drank a whole bottle of water this afternoon. You are coming for a walk with me before bed."

"Okay," she whispered, leaning into him weakly. "You walk for me then."

xxx 

Gibson chuckled as he unzipped his sleeping bag and helped Sarah with hers.

"Scully is completely rooted," he mumbled. Sarah heard him and giggled.

"You mean tired, right?" she asked.

"Yeah," he whispered. "If I wasn't still so completely amazed that she's okay it'd be hilarious. She's really okay you know," he added more gently. "Please don't worry about her anymore."

"Okay," Sarah promised softly. "Will you be coming with us, Gibson?"

"For the time being," he told her. "Shannon will explain more tomorrow. We should tell everyone at once, but I might have to go to Antarctica eventually. I don't know."

"Cos you would be the ultimate mediator right?" she asked. "I was thinking about that, well, actually duh, you know that already, but you could see exactly what both sides 'really' wanted."

"That's the theory," he sighed. "But I'm going to lie low for a while. You can't tell anyone you meet that I can read minds. It'll be a huge secret."

"Sure," she agreed. Gibson smiled, moving over to Mulder and Scully's sleeping bags. Skinner and Shannon were mumbling about the fact that Skinner had to go with Sarah and Shannon couldn't, and John and Monica were settling Nicholas beside them for the night. Nobody had thought about Mulder and Scully's beds but Gibson knew that if Mulder was carrying Scully to a toilet break he would be carrying her back also, and considering Scully was barely conscious already Gibson thought he should at least make it easy to get her into bed.

He hoped they went to Antarctica. They would have real beds there. He would have to mention that to them. The idea might seem too appealing to Scully to be true, but it would help to set her at ease. As it was, he was not sure he would need to persuade them.

Gibson really had to hand it to Shannon. When he had gotten up the nerve to ask Shannon and her buddy whether fertility was an issue he had not been so surprised by the answer, but he had been upset, and she had seen his expression fall in disappointment.

'Scully is barren,' he had told them. 'From her abduction.' Shannon had cursed herself for not realising sooner. She'd had all the information but had just never spent the time to consider the real consequences. Yet Shannon never dwelled on her emotions; within a minute she was searching for alternatives and after chatting with her friend and finding out about the neutral territory the perfect opportunity had seemed to present itself. Particularly when they discovered the lack of professional assistance in such an isolated area; it was exactly the sort of environment in which Gibson knew Scully would thrive, and Mulder too. He could actually 'do' something. They would not know themselves.

"Are they going to go?" Monica asked him from just a metre away all of a sudden. He nodded.

"I think so but they'll make their own announcement after they talk. I don't know what their thoughts 'together' are. Either way, I'm sorry, but Shannon is right. There is no way they can come with us. They won't let her in and Mulder would never leave her. Even trying to fiddle with her records and changing her name and stuff won't work, because of how everyone needs to be processed. It's a complete physical. Everyone has to meet minimum criteria. You can't fake being able to have children. And remember, as much as they both love kids, being surrounded by them in a place like that would be really painful."

Monica felt tears sting her eyes as Gibson turned to stare at her in the light of the full moon. She remembered instantly. She had almost forgotten. Right after Nicholas had been born, with a fair degree of help from Scully, she had disappeared. Mulder went searching. John had looked out of the upstairs window and seen Scully sobbing in the desert. They had stayed out there for hours, and when they came back they had both been crying. She remembered Scully trying to hide it when she came in to check on her. Mulder had stayed away for longer.

Gibson had never needed to say very much to fill in the blanks. Monica knew that as happy as they were they were heartbroken; their own son, given up for adoption, was surely dead, and they could never hope to have another. For all her empathy she could not truly imagine how they felt, but she had been there with them for the journey, so she understood as well as she could.

"It's okay," Gibson whispered, reaching over a sleeping Nicholas to squeeze Monica's hand as she sat propped up in front of him. "They're not sad all the time, only sometimes, and they love Nicky, but Antarctica would be a better place for them. You know they would never agree to work with the supersoldiers. I know how much you all want to stay together, but we just can't get them in."

"Gibson would we-" John went to ask a question but found himself without the ability to finish it. He sat up behind Monica and frowned, silently telling Gibson to finish the question himself and answer. His voice would crack if he tried, and he did not want Monica to hear.

"Shannon will explain more in the morning," Gibson hissed. "Not everything will be as it seems, but no, you may never see them again."

xxx 

"Thanks Gibson," Mulder whispered as Gibson held the sleeping bag open for him to ease Scully's legs in. "You have no idea how hard it is to help a semi-conscious woman go to the toilet in the sand."

"I do now," Gibson teased with a chuckle. "She is really out to it."

"Yeah," Mulder sighed, nothing but pride in his voice as he slid Scully into the bag and lowered her head half onto the material, half onto the sand. It was only then he noticed Gibson had zipped their bags together for the night. "Ah, a special treat," he laughed. "Thanks Gibson."

"No worries. If she gets sick again in the night just wake us up but I think she's great."

"Yeah I'm not so worried," Mulder promised, even though Gibson already knew that. Mulder suspected Gibson was still more worried and made sure he smiled broadly at the young man, clamping an affectionate hand briefly on his shoulder. "Thank you," he added sincerely. Gibson nodded and retreated to his sleeping bag. It took Mulder an extra few minutes to climb in beside Scully and zip them up, settling down into a semi-comfortable position. Scully did not move from where he had laid her on her back and he lay on his side, watching her breathing.

It was only then that he noticed Monica crying softly just beside them, and Mulder felt tears sting his eyes. He raised his head so that he could see over Scully and in the silver light of the moon he caught John's eyes as John looked over at them. Monica was wrapped in his arms, her back to Mulder. A moment of understanding passed between John and Mulder as Mulder realised just what Monica was upset about. Obviously his and Scully's absence had allowed a few questions to pass amongst the group regarding the fact they were going to be split up. There was not even an option to stay together; Shannon had said it was impossible.

Mulder used his expression to seriously ask John if Monica was okay. John nodded a little over the top of her head and then lowered his back down to the ground. Mulder watched Monica pull closer to him, muffling her tears against her husband's chest. Mulder sighed loudly, staring down at Scully's peaceful face illuminated. It was so pale, he realised happily. It was as though the past few days had never happened.

He knew he should be sad at the thought of leaving his friends, and a part of him was, but he had never held onto friends in his life. He had never been in the popular group in high school, and he had been somewhat of a loner in college and at university. Successful enough that he stood out but independent enough that he felt no real need to be part of a pack. Sometimes he had looked at the groups with longing, mostly in his adolescence, but he had always felt that being a part of those groups of buddies was something that was reserved for people who did not come from shattered families. What did he need an army of friends for? He just needed his sister.

Regardless of his beliefs, Mulder had always had friends. People had helped him. People had been drawn to him because of his talents, because they thought he could take them places. When they ultimately realised that he would take them nowhere but down, with his obsessions and attitude, they bolted. But a few had clung on over the years, at first because they had been bound to, but then because they wanted to. Like Skinner, and John.

Scully was still the exception to all of those rules he had forced upon himself from the moment he realised he would have to live without his little sister. She had gotten through to him slowly, and a part of Mulder had always known that she had never clung to him because she had been forced to. She may have been assigned to him, but on their very first case she had come to him because she needed him. He had talked openly with her about matters of his past he usually reserved for people he knew a lot better, and he remembered the look in her eyes as she had listened. He knew a part of her had been instantly sceptical but she had just watched him, and listened to him, and not turned him down or laughed or anything.

Other women had.

Mulder sighed again as he allowed his index finger to brush over her jaw. She did not stir, but he had taken her pulse and it seemed fine. She was just tired. A tiny part of Mulder was worried about the fact the chip was no longer in her neck, but Scully had been right. They would take each day as it came. He knew there were no options if she got cancer. There was no treatment. She would die, unless the aliens had a cure for cancer up their sleeves, of course. Mulder allowed himself to smile at the thought of trying to convince Scully to let herself be operated on by aliens. Real ones. He could picture the raised eyebrow. Classic.

Mulder knew he was using humour to mask the niggling worry in his gut that she was getting sick again, even as she slept. It just would not happen again. Denial was also a comfortable, familiar route. The cancer would not come back. No more tumours or nosebleeds or vomiting. Her body would not have spat the chip out if it knew it would get sick if she lost it, surely. That was just the truth of the situation. All that was happening as she slept was that her body was recuperating from whatever it had been through. All that mattered was that she was conscious and breathing and that her heart was beating. It was all that had ever mattered.

Mulder sat beside her until he heard Monica's tears fade. The camp drifted into silence, the only sounds around him the steady breaths of his friends. The moment was private enough and if Mulder thought he could keep his eyes open longer he would, but he had not been sleeping the previous nights and worry was an exhausting emotion to bear for long periods of time. He should know. He had dealt with it enough in his life.

He leant over Scully and pressed his lips to her cheek.

"I love you," he whispered, tears stinging his eyes as he watched her sleep. "Sweet dreams."

xxx 

Shannon approached Mulder and Scully the next day as they sat far away from camp in the sand, talking. Scully nervously tucked her loose, shoulder-length hair behind her ears as Shannon sat in front of them on the slope. She wanted to be able to see their faces as they spoke to her. She did not bother asking Scully how she was feeling. She had heard everyone else at camp do that already and the reply had been a curt little smile and a clipped, 'fine'. Shannon was used to it.

But Scully had extracted herself with Mulder for a private talk almost instantly and they had been sitting there for at least half an hour, according to most people's watches. It had been time for Shannon to intervene.

"Do you have any questions?" she asked hopefully.

"Could you answer them if we did?" Mulder replied, his voice playful and wise as he stroked his brown beard.

"Maybe not," she conceded. "But I have an interest in what you decide."

"And why is that?" Scully asked cautiously. Shannon smirked.

"Because I'm coming with you," she announced. "At least until the processing centre."

"Then where will you go?" Mulder asked. "You can't go to anywhere with magnetite, or any supersoldier base."

"I can walk into any supersoldier base," she assured him. "I might not be warmly received but what are they going to do, shoot me?" Mulder chuckled as Scully managed a thoughtful smirk. "You will find this out when you get to wherever you're going, but there are people involved in certain situations that want to try to stop the supersoldier program from getting out of control."

"The way you tell it, it already is," Scully pointed out suspiciously.

"I believe it's on the way," Shannon agreed, nodding. "What's important now is that enough humans' lives are preserved so that should the supersoldiers ever be defeated you won't just die out. That's why the human colonies set up are family-focussed. People like Sarah and Gibson won't be forced into relationships with people they don't want to, but by agreeing to go there, everyone does have a certain obligation."

"Who insisted on setting those places up?" Mulder asked. "The aliens insisted on Antarctica but conceded the southern hemisphere's resources, but they shouldn't necessarily care about the continuation of the human race, and the supersoldier program doesn't. Was it really just those behind the program getting cold feet about what they were creating? Wanting their families to survive somehow in the disaster area they were about to unleash?"

"How do you know the aliens don't care about continuation of the human race?" Shannon asked smugly. "They agreed to let you survive last time."

"As a slave race of hybrids," Mulder debated. "That's not so much my thing."

"You and Scully have an opportunity to learn everything you were never able to study on the X Files. Things that were always kept from you no matter how close you thought you got. I'm giving them to you on a silver platter."

"Yes and we're wary of the platter," Mulder huffed. "It's been waved under our noses before."

"Okay," Shannon sighed. "I'll level. There is sort of an underground movement within the colonies to attempt to divide and conquer the supersoldiers, but it is nowhere near ready. It has nothing to do with magnetite; it has to do with the people behind it."

"You're going to assassinate the people in charge of the supersoldiers?" Scully asked.

"Ooh I'm not one for labels," Shannon teased. "But if you take away their leaders-"

"They'll just create a new leader out of the group," Mulder interrupted.

"No Mulder," Shannon insisted. "They are not a 'group'. When Doggett and I were in the army, we would do anything to back each other up. That's just how life was. Skinner's the same, and the two of you in your partnership – always backing. Supersoldiers do not back. They do not know how to organise themselves into a unit."

"Can they learn it?" Scully asked perceptively.

"From what I've seen, no," Shannon replied. "Because no supersoldier can display identifying attributes that would make him stand out to the others as a leader-type. They are all alphas. There is no one person above them except those who give them orders."

"So you think if you kill all those people, all the scientists and the military personnel involved, that the supersoldiers will, what, melt into a puddle?" Mulder queried.

"No, but they'll be much easier to destroy wandering around on their own. But nobody's ready for that stage yet. We need to develop the magnetite so that what little we have CAN be used against them."

"How?" Scully asked.

"By replicating it," Shannon replied. "But don't ask me specifics because I'm not a scientist."

"How do you know all of this?" Mulder pressed. "Because it seems to be an awful lot of information delivered in a short space of time that we could have known all along."

"Why, would it have changed anything? Would you have walked faster through the desert?"

"Well, no," he answered. Shannon smiled.

"Good then. Look you know what I am. I cannot look you in the eye and say I feel bad about lying. I can say that I understand that you feel upset that I lied to you, and I know without being able to feel it that it was wrong, but I made a decision to hold off until I had more information about what everyone was going to be able to do, and whether you would be allowed to survive. If there was no Antarctica, Dana would be sent to a supersoldier program and forced to work on its science, and if she refused she would be murdered. You both would. This is the best way, and there's a lot to be learned in Antarctica. No pressure, but if you choose, you can help us."

"If we choose?" Scully asked.

"Antarctica is not so much a choice," she replied seriously. "What you do when you're there is. Go be health professionals to the people there, study what is around you there and you can stop at that if you want or you can not stop. And Mulder, I must confess a little fib last night. I did not want the others to know because Gibson said it would worry them needlessly."

"Oh yeah?" Mulder asked cautiously. Shannon smirked at him.

"Nobody has forgotten you. Or Scully. But I never thought I would be able to find you both alive to send you there. You'll be carefully watched on your way, but once you get to Antarctica nobody will be able to get to you."

"Uh, I hate to point out perhaps an obvious problem," Scully mumbled. "But if a supersoldier wanted to get to us in Antarctica, couldn't they just dive into the ocean and swim there, and then walk over the ice no matter what time of year and burst in?" Shannon smirked and shook her head. Scully stared at her with disbelief. "Don't tell me Antarctica's made of magnetite."

"No," she laughed. "But they would never 'think' to do that on their own."

"Okay so say somebody sends them, like they sent that 'thing' to kill Mulder?"

"That 'thing', as you called him," Shannon chuckled. "Was ordered to protect the water contamination plan and then to pursue Mulder. Those were his orders. I believe the people now capable of giving those orders are too afraid of their own creation and the aliens to risk breaching the Convention in such an obvious way."

"Why? You said they wanted to move back north. That's kind of obvious too," Mulder stated.

"Yes but there are no aliens back north," she huffed. "Antarctica is different, I keep telling you this but I don't think you're going to understand until you get there. It is protected. Only very special people get in there. You could live the rest of your lives with complete satisfaction there, and if a war does come as the result of supersoldier stupidity Antarctica will not be destroyed."

"But the south may, where the human colonies are," Scully whispered. "Where John and Monica and Skinner will be, where all the children will be."

"Every effort is being made to ensure that there is no war," Shannon promised. "But there is that risk. But they cannot go to Antarctica. It would be too harsh for them, they wouldn't have anything to do, and in the colonies there are a lot of things they can do to help. I assure you, Dana, nobody will be left behind here. I've done everything I can to save all of you."

"I know," Scully whispered, blushing. "I'm sorry I'm just trying to take this in."

"I understand," Shannon replied seriously. "But you better take it in quickly because the three of us are going to need to move today."

"What?" Mulder hissed as Scully's eyes widened in surprise.

"The processing centre for the two of you is different to where the others will be going. They have to go through normal channels. I'm taking you through diplomatic channels. The only little problem is that where your processing centre is, is out there." She pointed behind her into the sea. "And I don't know if you've noticed those clouds gathering, but I don't think you want to be only halfway out there when they break."

xxx 

"What is she doing pointing out to sea?" John asked, watching Shannon point into the ocean. "Antarctica is south not east."

"Maybe she spotted a whale," Sarah mumbled from her position sitting on her sleeping bag with Nicky in her lap. Monica chuckled, reaching for a strand of blonde hair and playfully tugging while making a face at her son, who cackled. "Hey!" Sarah laughed. "What are they doing now John?"

"They're still just talking," he answered seriously. Gibson had wandered off for a deep and meaningful with Skinner and was not around to help spy on their friends. "Looks pretty serious, and...Mulder's just lied down on the sand with his arms over his head. I dunno, I think they're going to go."

"Shannon 'really' wants them to," Sarah pointed out. "So does Gibson."

"Well Shannon did mention there was some sort of rebellion planned," Monica mumbled. "I think Mulder and Scully, because of their experience with all of this, to 'have' them would be a huge bonus."

"Yeah but on whose side?" John asked.

"Our side you dummy," Monica laughed.

"I really don't want to split up," Sarah whispered. "Dana's always been SO nice to me, and Mulder is really cool and-" She paused, sighing deeply. "We won't get split up will we?"

"I hope not," Monica assured her. "We like having you around, and you're great with Nicky. John you don't think this 'processing centre' is anything like the military base where Mulder was held, do you?"

"I don't think so," he answered hesitantly. "It's not meant to be a prison, Mon, but there's always a chance of anything happening, especially with our history in the FBI. We could be split up and asked questions. I guess it will depend on who's running the show."

"What are they doing now?" Sarah asked curiously. John again looked over his shoulder.

"Shannon and Mulder are talking and Scully keeps lookin' over here," he replied. "I think they're waiting for Gibson and Skinner to come back."

"Walter's not happy about having to leave Shannon," Sarah whispered. "I think he'd rather go with her."

"Well we won't let him," Monica promised, reaching over to pat Sarah's knee. She then reached for a nearby squeaky toy and started playing with Nicky. As he reached for it she pulled it away and he laughed. Sarah chuckled, holding him still as he stretched. She blindly made sure his hat was still on his head and tugged it on a little tighter. She could feel the sun hot against her skin and knew it must be bright.

"You two are mean," John teased, swiping the toy from Monica's hands and giving it to his son. "Let the little man have his squeaky toy. No need for exercises in the middle of the day." Nicky could barely hold the toy in his tiny hand and let it drop into the sand, giggling. "Well, at least he's happy," John chuckled, squeezing his baby's little hand with a few of his fingers and grinning when Nicky looked up at him through his big, brown eyes.

"He is going to need serious vaccinations before we can take him anywhere," Monica mumbled, suddenly cautious. "Especially if there are going to be other children-"

"I'm sure we can organise that at the centre," John promised. "The only thing Shannon seems to know for sure about them is that they're big on all the medical clearances. He's been SO good so far Mon. All we needed was one nasty infection and even Scully-"

"Don't jinx it!" Sarah interrupted with a hiss. Monica grinned. She had been about to say the same thing.

"All he's had is a little ear infection and colic, that's amazing," John concluded. "That's all I'm sayin'."

"You know it's because Dana makes Monica take ten billion supplements a day," Sarah teased. "She's the healthiest person here. Once he starts needing solids he'll be on his own though, so maybe all this 'is' pretty good timing."

"Our timing's good, but I still don't like the choices."

"You don't have choices," Gibson stated from directly behind John, causing him to jump in surprise.

"Jesus you know how to sneak up people don't you?" he huffed. Gibson chuckled and sat down beside John as Skinner wandered over to Shannon, Mulder and Scully.

"Sorry," Gibson apologised, though he did not sound very sorry. "Shannon's making it sound like there are choices but there aren't. This is just what is going to happen. I'll be with you lot the whole time. Mulder and Scully can look after themselves."

"Is Uncle Walter coming with us?" Sarah asked softly. Gibson nodded.

"Of course. He would never leave you."

"I thought he would like to go with Shannon more."

"Nobody can go where Shannon's going. She might be more human than the rest, but she still prefers to work alone." The group drifted into a thoughtful silence disturbed only when the remaining members returned from the distance. Skinner and Shannon were standing either side of Mulder and Scully. Scully had her arms crossed and Mulder's hands were fidgeting by his sides. All of them wore sunglasses. It was impossible to see the expressions on their faces apart from the standard, unemotional grimace Monica and John were used to.

"We're going to go," Scully mumbled once a sufficient amount of tense silence had passed.

"Okay," Monica answered gently. "Are you sure?"

"We don't have a choice," she replied. It seemed to be the statement of the day. "But it is a good opportunity for us and considering the fact I could never have followed you anyway, we'll just have to make do with the opportunities tossed to us. It's all Mulder and I have ever done, and we're going to keep doing it."

"How are you gonna get to Antarctica?" John asked, not amazed by their statement but amazed at the scope of the 'opportunities' Scully was dismissing as though she was talking about an interdepartmental transfer. After all, they were in Mexico. Somehow they had to get to Antarctica, presumably before the winter ice made it impossible to get close, and they were without the use of modern power, which presumably included all ships and planes.

"I can't tell you that," Shannon teased. "Haven't even told them yet. But transport won't be a problem. The thing is, there's a storm coming out in the islands, and-" She paused when she saw John and Monica both lean around her and peer out to the nearby ocean, frowning.

"Looks like normal clouds to me," John frowned. Shannon crossed her arms and smirked.

"Doggett, are you second-guessing my ability to sense the weather?" she asked smugly. "As I was saying, the three of us are heading out...today."

"What?" Monica exclaimed. "Today? When today?"

"As soon as possible," Shannon replied seriously. "I was going to give you the day until I felt the weather this morning. It's going to take us time to get out there and I don't want to be walking into a Bahamas hurricane if you know what I'm saying. I'm confident Dana's well enough to travel and that was my main concern. Gibson I need to run through with you where you're going with the rest of them, maybe show you in a drawing so it's not just all in your head. Skinner's going to have a copy as well."

"That would be great," Gibson assured her with a smile. He had too much in his head already; directions were the last thing he needed.

"All right," Shannon declared, turning to Mulder and Scully, who had both not moved since she had taken over in speaking. "You two pack, I need to talk to all of these guys. Take all your stuff because there's nowhere to dump it until you get to the centre. You'll be provided with everything else you need when we're there. Everyone else," she continued, turning back to the group, who were listening on with open mouths and clenched hands. Even Nicky was staring up at her with his mouth hanging open; though Shannon had a feeling he was simply mimicking her. She pressed her lips together in a smile before focussing on his father, the one man in the group she was very familiar with and who knew her style. "Everyone else move out ten or so metres that way, we'll have a meeting, and let Mulder and Scully collect their things in private. There'll be time for goodbyes later."


	7. Chapter 7

Seven

Scully allowed herself to smile as she leant against one of the many thick, concrete pillars that bordered the tiny, concrete exercise yard. Mulder had been ecstatic to see a basketball hoop erected. The only problem was, he had no ball. Although Scully seemed to be the only one who found that problematic; for the past half an hour Mulder had been playing air-basketball. And doing quite well considering all the cheering, she thought, her smile widening as she watched him leap enthusiastically for a slam dunk.

"You're not wearing proper shoes for that," she warned to announce her presence. Mulder did not flinch, dribbling his pretend basketball around in a circle.

"Not wearing any shoes," he shot back.

"Yes and if you twist an ankle on that cement it's going to hurt," she teased, walking forward in her own bare feet. They were both wearing jeans and t-shirts, but the weather had taken a bad turn since they had arrived, just as Shannon had predicted. There was no blue visible in the sky above the square court. All that was above them was a thick mass of grey-green cloud. The wind was strong, and Scully's ponytail whipped against the back of her neck. "We should really head inside, Mulder," she warned.

"You mean you didn't have fun the last time we were in a hurricane?" he asked with a wide grin. He took a three-pointer from the far end of the court and raised his arms in victory. Scully laughed. She was glad she had thought to pack his seasickness patches and carry them around in her case for so long. If he had not taken them, the rough sailboat ride to the island would have been disastrous and he would have still been in poor shape.

Everyone at camp had thought it was strange.

'Hey Scully, you got my Scopolamine?' Mulder had shouted out as she had been attempting to hand over and explain notes she had quickly made about all the medication she had chosen to leave behind. She had answered him quickly, having seen it just moments ago upon completing an inventory of her medical supplies, but Sarah had asked what it was.

'Motion sickness patches,' she had answered. 'Mulder gets seasick.'

'You brought motion sickness patches with you into the DESERT,' Skinner had stated dryly, completely disbelieving. Scully had shrugged. Her supplies in their first aid box had been pre-packed and only topped up when necessary on trips through various town centres. They had prepared for every eventuality, and that included Mulder's motion sickness. Although how he ended up bent over the side of a boat when he could just as easily sleep through heavy turbulence on a plane astounded her.

There was a small bench a few metres away and Scully took a seat, content to watch Mulder stretching his legs and exploring the 'processing centre' they had been dumped in, a centre which had been completely evacuated because of the approaching storm. They were locked in, and there was not another soul on the island. Shannon and their captain, a young man she seemed to know quite well, had assured her people would return after the storm, and that they were to stay put in their assigned rooms. Scully had smirked then. 'Assigned rooms' seemed ridiculous when the centre was deserted. But in the centre of the building, which appeared as strongly constructed as any fortress, there had indeed been a dorm room with their names taped to it. Mulder had just laughed.

'So much for a concierge welcome,' he had teased.

He came and sat beside her on the bench then, wrapping a casual arm around her shoulders.

"I think this place will hold up to the storm," he promised. "Should hit sometime tonight." Scully nodded. It had been four days since they had left the camp, and Scully still had mixed emotions about leaving.

Everyone had been curious as to how Mulder and Scully would get off the mainland. Everybody else was headed inland, but they were meant to be going out to sea? It seemed unfathomable considering the lapse of all modern technology. Scully had been wondering herself, staring out at the coastline with Mulder's binoculars, when she had spotted the sixty foot wooden schooner sitting at a nearby port. She had ripped her sunglasses off with excitement to take another look, and then she had called Mulder over.

'Come and look at THIS! It's the most beautiful boat I've ever seen in my life!'

Scully could not remember whether she had actually squealed at that point. She knew she had been grinning, and she smiled at the memory. Mulder had humoured her but she had seen a brief flit of nervousness as he realised her assumptions. She had rested a hand on his shoulder and urged him to lean down so she could whisper in his ear that she had his patches. He had looked at her, just as stunned as everyone else had been really, and she had thought for a minute that he would kiss her then. But he hadn't. He had smoothly handed the binoculars back and said, 'It's your dream, Starbuck'.

At some point in the few minutes that followed, where Scully confirmed with Shannon that it looked as though some form of transport had in fact arrived and was waiting, she realised the rest of the group, particularly Monica, was focussed on her with looks of pain and confusion. Scully had not understood the source of those expressions until she had been standing right in front of the renovated yacht with tears in her eyes, for it had been a long time since she had seen something manmade look so beautiful.

Then she had understood. In the moments that followed her identification of the yacht she had been excited to the point of gleeful. She had not sailed since her childhood, her adolescence. It had been something they always did on family holidays. Her dad had taught her how to navigate, how to sail, and those were memories she had always treasured. Even the possibility that she could get just one more chance to enjoy something which she had not even bothered thinking of in a decade had caused her to jump up and down in the sand as Mulder peered warily through the binoculars at her side.

And they had all been watching. Her friends had watched her celebrate something which they did not understand. Mulder understood. He had not been affected by her excitement. He had absorbed it because he knew about her father and his naval background and her exposure to the sea in her youth as a result. But the rest of her friends, despite all the time they had spent working together, did not know those things about her. She kept her family history very close to her well guarded heart. Gibson certainly had known, and she suspected Skinner understood, but the rest had surely felt a little rejected.

"I should have tried harder not to skip away," she mumbled as she leant her head into Mulder's shoulder. He hummed, his tone rising at the end, asking her to elaborate without words. She glanced upwards and saw him watching the clouds overhead. "Do you think they were upset I got so excited about sailing?"

"I'm sure if they were Gibson would have cleared things up."

"It was almost like another chance to say goodbye to my family," she whispered, tears suddenly filling her blue eyes. Her voice cracked. She had not seen the shift in her emotions coming and Mulder squeezed her shoulder as he frowned down at her with understanding and concern. "My dad," she added, her voice barely audible.

"I know, Dana," Mulder whispered. "It was a beautiful boat." She nodded. It had been. "Do you think we're going to have to go on it all the way to Antarctica?" Scully laughed at the innocence in his voice, shaking her head.

"No, it wasn't built for that," she assured him. "I don't know how we're going to get down there. It would take too long to sail. They might just leave us here for all we know."

"They won't," Mulder chuckled. "We've got enough food and water in the kitchen here to last a few weeks. I don't think they expect 'processing' to take too long. They might want us down there before winter."

"Well if they want that they better come up with something a bit faster than a yacht," Scully pointed out.

"I got to you pretty fast that time."

"You had a PLANE," she reminded him, laughing at his temporary lapse. Sometimes it was so easy to believe nothing had changed. The world had gone on, after all. It was hard to adjust to not having something which had always been a part of life, and she and Mulder had done so much flying it was ingrained in them. No more rental cars, Scully thought suddenly with a wide smile. Now that was a bonus.

"Did Shannon say anything about this storm?" Mulder asked. Scully shook her head. "Hopefully it won't turn into a bad hurricane, but I can't wait for it to rain."

"Me too," she agreed. "We won't see any rain in Antarctica, and we haven't seen any rain in more than a year in the desert. It could rain the whole time we're here and I'd be happy."

"You know what's weird?" he asked, his voice suddenly soft and thoughtful.

"What?" she asked, staring up at the sky with him in case it held the answer to his question and she was missing it.

"We might never come back here again, Scully. You never know what might happen, but this might be the last time we EVER see rain."

"Don't say that Mulder," Scully whispered, her heart jolting with grief. "We don't know what will happen in the future."

"I just mean that we should really, really enjoy this," he mumbled. "Like you enjoyed sailing and I enjoyed pretending to shoot hoops. We should just enjoy it like we were little kids. There's nobody here but us. So hurricane or not, no fear, okay?"

"No fear," she promised with a wide smile as he glanced down at her. She reached up and dragged her fingers across his bearded cheek. "The first thing I'm going to do when it does start to rain is lather you up and shave this 'thing' off your face right out here."

"Sounds good to me," he teased.

xxx 

Gibson had not known five days of walking to be so unproductive. According to Shannon, they needed to get to Ecuador. It was months away. They would have access to enough supplies along the way, but without Shannon to pull the raft their bags were full and heavy, and everyone was carrying more than they had been physically used to. Not to mention Monica with the baby and everything Nicky needed, and Sarah not being able to see. They had been trailing behind together from the start, and John and Skinner had been taking turns walking with them to make sure that nobody fell so far behind they were lost.

Gibson had never realised how much the group, in its parts and together, had relied upon the three people who had departed. Shannon had always been with Skinner and Sarah. Skinner missed her. They had parted without any display of real affection and Gibson knew Skinner regretted not at least giving her a hug. Gibson did not know why he hadn't. They had slept together in the past. A hug was not so far-fetched. Shannon had been the anchor of that part of their team. She had been lugging an enormous weight of supplies since the beginning without ever complaining. She did not sleep, so had always been on guard, and she had been a leader. She had helped get Scully back on her feet and Sarah cope with her blindness, and in insisting they go south inland had unwittingly led the group straight to Gibson and 'his' team.

Unlike Shannon, Mulder had never been the leader of the group. He had been too consumed by grief and regret to do anything but follow, but it was his quiet affability that was being missed by the men and women following behind. He had been a changed person upon Scully's return. John even felt he had changed on the trip to DC, and that even if Scully hadn't returned things would have improved for him. Gibson believed that.

The others were not alone in missing their friends. Gibson had always respected Mulder and Scully. He had gone to them in times of trouble. Scully had looked after him. She had thought of herself not just as his doctor but as almost of a mother figure, and he had caught her chastising herself for thinking that way more than once. Knowing how much they had instantly cared about him had made him uncomfortable at first. Nobody in his short life had ever really cared about HIM, only what he could do. The parents he had left behind long ago had certainly never given a shit as long as he was winning prize money for chess. He had left partly to save them also; they had never understood the danger he faced in being exposed so often in public. In the end, he had become more of a hassle to them.

Mulder and Scully had never seen him as a hassle, and though they too had wanted to study him, they appreciated how he felt. Scully had listened when he had told her he thought he was a lab rat. 'I know sweetheart. I'm sorry.' That's what she had told him without words in the brief moment before the curtain was pulled between them. He had heard her call him sweetheart or honey more times than he could count. No other doctor ever had. Hell, no other adult really ever had. He had felt safe with them. He had run to them. He had protected them.

Mulder had always been protective of Gibson also, and they had kept in touch after the first times they had spent together. So much so that Mulder had found him in New Mexico after Scully had convinced him to leave for his own safety. When he was younger, Gibson had appreciated Mulder as much as he had Scully. The man was smart, and even though Gibson had teased him about his dirty mind, he had never had a problem reading Mulder's heart.

Mulder had always reminded Gibson of himself; somebody who had never felt cared for 'enough'. Sure, there were no major complaints growing up, not like some kids had, but there had been things missing. Gibson smiled when he remembered the first time he had met Mulder. Mulder had instantly challenged him with that electronic chess game he knew Gibson could not beat, and so Gibson had challenged him in return.

'I know you're thinking about one of the girls you brought. One of them is thinking about you.'

'Which one?' Diana had asked. Diana had been Mulder's ex-girlfriend, his ex-partner. She had been tall and leggy with brown eyes and long, brown hair. As soon as Gibson had announced Mulder's thoughts Scully had assumed he had been thinking about Diana, about how it had been with them even though she knew nothing of their past relationship.

Which one? Oh please. It wouldn't take a mind-reader. Mulder and his tarty brunettes. Phoebe, BAMBI, now 'this'. She's everything I'm not. She probably treated him like SHIT.

Mulder had been thinking about Diana, but not in the way that Gibson had made it sound, and not in the way Scully had instantly assumed. Mulder had been confused to see Diana again. She had hurt him once. More than once.

When Gibson had then announced that one of the women was thinking about him, he had been talking about Scully. Scully had been thinking about Mulder. Diana had only been thinking about the little boy, intrigued by his ability and his humour. Scully, for once, had not been thinking anything like the scientist she was, and she was uncomfortable with the fact that Gibson had caught her. She did not then believe that he could read her mind, but he knew she knew it was what Mulder believed, and he also knew that she knew Mulder was probably right, even if she did have to perform her own analysis to be sure.

Mulder had assumed Diana had been thinking about him, about how they had been. He assumed she had been thinking dirty thoughts about him.

I don't want Scully to know anything about what that woman thinks about me. She would never respect me again.

Gibson had complied. He knew Scully would be hurt if she knew their thoughts. He also knew Diana was important to Mulder and that he still trusted her, but the fact that Mulder had not wanted Scully to learn that Diana had the 'right' to think about him as he assumed spoke volumes. Not because Mulder was consciously aware of Scully's feelings for him, but because he desperately wanted Scully to believe he was a better man than he thought he was. And so, exposed to Gibson, had been Mulder's unconscious awareness of his feelings for her.

Not many people ever really sucked Gibson in. He was independent. He never needed much help, but he had made the effort to keep in touch with Mulder. It was not because Mulder had some sort of power that other people didn't, or that Mulder could help protect him from those who wanted him dead. Mulder had been too busy with his real work and Gibson never would have asked that of him. He had kept in touch with Mulder for the simple reason that he liked him, and he understood him, and he believed in what Gibson believed. They were friends.

And Scully came with Mulder. She had for as long as Gibson had known them. After splitting with them that time more than a decade earlier, he had not seen Scully again until Mulder's trial, but he had heard a lot about her; little snippets in emails from Mulder, and then in the time Mulder had spent with him in New Mexico it was all Gibson could do to distract him somehow from the family he had left behind. The Scully he had known in that time had been Mulder's fantasy-Scully, the comforter, the mother, the friend. His memories of her had been glossed over by his love and the fact he missed her and William.

It had been nice to get to know the 'real' Scully again, Gibson realised. The scientist who still believed in God despite everything she had seen and who was determined to fight for both of her faiths. The friend who always listened and who was not afraid to use dry humour, sarcasm or plain honesty to help her team cope. The peacemaker who was so prepared to look after everyone she had even held onto Mulder's motion sickness patches. The doctor who could safely deliver her best friend's baby with huge enthusiasm and then walk straight out into the desert and release the sort of heartbreaking pain only a grieving parent could know.

And just as importantly she was the woman who had snuck off into the desert with the love of her life for 'quiet time' when she knew they all knew. She had thought it was unlike her, but it wasn't. She was passionate and Gibson had always known that. When he met her, she had already been in love with Mulder. He had never known her not to be. She cared for Mulder with great passion, but she had often kept it so well hidden that for a long time Gibson knew Mulder had not recognised it. How could he, when he had never seen it from another before?

Gibson sighed when he realised how much their absence stung him. The others were all feeling down as well. The pace had slowed, the jokes had dried up. Mulder was no longer prepared with his 'daily dozen' crazy stories. He was not breaking into old Elvis tunes to lift their spirits. He wasn't asking Scully useless medical questions he never needed to know the answers to just to distract her from the heat, and she wasn't looking back at her friends and wondering how much further they could all walk before another break was needed. In the past five days, they had taken a lot of breaks.

As Monica so often did, in a great display of her sense of his mind, she called for a stop. Nicky was wet. Gibson quickly sat down in the sand and waited for the rest of them to catch up as Monica and John stayed behind with their son. Skinner helped Sarah to sit beside Gibson before taking a seat himself and stretching out his legs, resting back on the large backpack that held heavy, canned food and water. Without Shannon and Mulder, Skinner was the tallest and broadest male, and he carried the largest pack, followed closely by John. But neither of them were young men anymore, Gibson realised. They felt pain.

"You've been quiet today," Sarah whispered, reaching for Gibson's hand and squeezing it in a way that made his heart lurch a little in his chest. She doesn't think of you that way, he reminded himself, hiding the way he wanted to smile and shrugging.

"Just thinking about Mulder and Scully from when I was a kid," he answered. "How funny they were before they were together."

"What sort of funny?" she asked curiously. He recounted the story he had only recalled moments beforehand and listened to them both chuckle. "And what happened to the tarty brunette this time?" Sarah asked. "Did they have a fling and get Scully all jealous?"

"No," Gibson laughed. "Diana uh, she was shot, and then when she recovered she was assigned to work on the X Files. Mulder and Scully got reassigned elsewhere. She was working on the 'other side', with the conspirators, but she did genuinely want to help Mulder she just...was bound first by other loyalties. I wasn't there, but from what I heard she betrayed the conspirators to help Scully save his life, and she was murdered for it."

"Oh," Sarah sighed. "None of these stories have happy endings, do they?"

"You're only just working that out?" Skinner ribbed gently. Sarah smirked. "From what 'I' remember of what Gibson's saying, in the nick of time is probably an understatement. But it always is, with those two. Think they're at their processing centre yet?"

"Yeah, it wouldn't be a long sail," Gibson replied. "The wind's been okay, and they would've had emergency fuel on board."

"Really?" Sarah exclaimed. Gibson hummed in affirmation, not feeling much like elaborating. He was thinking about Scully sitting on her couch in her apartment with him and Monica at the table behind her and John on the phone, and the fact that when she had started to cry she hadn't been thinking anything at all, and he'd had nothing left of her to listen to but her tears. He could not hear her anymore, just like he had not been able to hear her then, but he should have been happy; they were both in far less pain than they had been then.

So why did he feel so horrible?

xxxx 

"MULDER!"

Mulder had been peering at the dark clouds outside the window of their dorm room when Scully called for him, and he immediately bolted in the direction of her voice. She had not sounded particularly frightened, but there had been urgency there. It was still instinct for them both to run, he realised, as Scully came skidding around the corner to meet him.

"Come see this!" she urged, grabbing his hand and leading him to where she had been; the bathroom. It looked like a standard gym or military bathroom with a dividing tile wall down the middle between the showers and stalls lined up on either side.

Mulder had showered opposite Scully in a bathroom just like this in quarantine at Fort Marlene, he remembered. He had been tall enough to peer over the rather low dividing wall right down at her as well, and he remembered catching her eye for just a second when he thought she had caught him peeking. She had turned her back on him, even though Mulder knew she had nothing to be ashamed of. He had loved her by then, he had wanted her then, and he had been glad for the dividing wall and her shyness. She hadn't seen the lust in his eyes. Just for a second he had wished that she had, and he wished that she had seen his fear as well. He had been as frightened as her. He always had been.

"What?" he asked. Scully had a wide grin on her face and was pointing to the shower in front of him. Mulder glanced down and saw the water at her feet, and his own smile widened when he realised what she was trying to tell him. Without warning, he leant forward and yanked on the cold tap and Scully screamed as a hard, thick spray of freezing water hit her in the face. Mulder laughed, shutting it off quickly. No need to waste it, he realised. Who knew how much water was there, though judging by how fiercely the water had hit his partner there did not seem to be a problem with water pressure.

"Mulder," she whispered, her voice shaking. Mulder thought she was either about to get very mad at him for surprising her, or she was about to pretend to be upset only to lure him under the same showerhead and get him back by soaking him with cold water also.

She did neither. She pushed her slick orange hair back from her forehead and smiled at him generously.

"Mulder, there's hot water," she finished hopefully. Mulder's lips parted in surprise and she nodded. "I just tried it under the tap. Is it storming yet?" He shook his head and she reached for the hem of his smelly t-shirt. "Then let's find some soap and have a hot shower."

"Scully," he replied, placing his hands firmly on her shoulders and staring down at her with serious, probing eyes. He shook her gently as he spoke. "Never have I heard more beautiful words come out of your mouth."

xxx 

Mulder giggled as he ran back into their dorm room in just his boxers with his torch. He switched it off, climbing into the small double bed with Scully and wrapping his arms around her. His head was on a pillow, a REAL pillow, soft and cottony. Scully tugged the sheet and quilt over them as rain and wind continued to batter the exterior of the complex.

The centre had been built in a square, and their small, high window overlooked the centre exercise yard and a small courtyard. The glass was double-glazed and thick and the frame of the window was concrete. Mulder had attempted to find something with which to board it up against the storm but nothing had seemed appropriate. If it shattered, it shattered, they had decided. Almost all the dorm rooms had similar, small windows high up on the wall. Scully had to stand on the bed to see out of it. It posed them little physical threat.

"What are you giggling about?" Scully asked as he wrapped his arms around her and nuzzled his smooth jaw against hers. She hummed in appreciation and reached back blindly to run her fingers over his cheek. "Thank you," she told him gently. He chuckled, as glad to be rid of the beard as she was. There was no need for thanks.

"I just can't believe I'm in bed with you," he mumbled, kissing her bare shoulder. "I am in a real, comfortable bed with a mattress and pillows and blankets, and mm, a beautiful smelling woman to keep me extra cosy."

"The last part hasn't been true for a long time," she admitted dryly. "But you haven't been much of a peach either Mulder."

"Oh I know," he teased. "How incredibly guilty do you feel about the others who are probably wandering south to the equator right now?"

"I'm trying not to think about it," she sighed. "But as selfish as it sounds, Mulder right now I can only think about us." Mulder grinned, running kisses along her shoulder as she sighed. "And how that shower was Heaven," she added. "And how good you smell right now."

"Remind me to send Shannon a big thank you card," he whispered against her ear, feeling her shiver. "So the storm outside is pretty strong now." She hummed. "It's really raining."

"I know. I can hear it. Everything look okay?"

"I didn't check everywhere, but between here and the actual flushing toilet yeah it looks all safe." She giggled, rolling in his arms to face him. "Can I tell you something?" he asked, stroking her pale cheek in the dark as she nodded. "I've just been thinking, but first, you know I would trade anything, ANYTHING in to be able to have a child with you, right?"

Scully nodded, biting her bottom lip as tears automatically filled her eyes. There was a certain way Mulder looked at her whenever he spoke of such things, whenever he said the words child or baby, and a certain way he spoke; as though his insides were ripping in half. His eyes were searching hers in the dark, making sure she was all right and not too upset he had broached the sensitive subject, and she nodded again to let him know to continue.

"Well I was thinking that even though that can never happen, that maybe this was all...how it was meant to happen, and that we're going to be okay. I just have this feeling, Scully, that we'll be okay and that maybe if things had been different we wouldn't be here, and we wouldn't be who we are, and we wouldn't be 'here', and I love that we are here."

"I love that we're here too," she replied in a whisper, letting a few tears dribble onto her cheeks. "I'd trade anything as well Mulder, and I know that's a confusing contrast to live with, to be truly happy and yet live without a part of us-" He nodded seriously as she paused to gauge his own thoughts. "And I am excited about the future, and a little bit nervous, and I hope that we'll be okay. I'm proud of who we are, and I would not ever want that to change." Mulder smiled gently as he relaxed more into his pillow. "Is it late?" Scully asked.

"The battery on my watch stopped," he admitted. "I think so. It feels late. We were in the shower for a really long time." Scully went to laugh but Mulder's hand strayed onto the back of one of her thighs, drawing her closer to him, urging her knee up towards his hip. Her breathing deepened as they stared at each other in the dark with eyes glittering with untamed desire. They had already climaxed twice, first in the shower under each other's mouths and then in bed, but the electricity still between them was strong, the atmosphere was charged.

The storm, Scully realised. The humidity. The unfamiliar heat from the shower still in them.

"I think we should venture into tropical storms more often, Mulder," she hissed as she leant forward for a chaste but foretelling kiss. Mulder groaned into her neck as she pressed her chest to his and shifted her hips. She was glad she hadn't put clothes back on. Only his boxers were between them. "I love this rain."

"Feels good, doesn't it?" he asked coyly against her lips as they kissed. She grinned, nodding at the double entendre . "You know what else?"

"What?" she gasped as he stroked the gentle swell of her breast. Her lips pressed into the skin of his neck under his jaw which had previously been covered by thick hair. She knew he liked to feel her lips there after he shaved and he groaned with distraction as she sucked and licked at his fresh skin. Her hands pushed the elastic from around his hips and he reached his free hand down to help her until the material disappeared somewhere between the sheets near his toes. "What else Fox?" Scully repeated as they moved against each other, teasing.

"So glad," he managed slowly, speaking into her sternum. "Gibson can't hear us." Scully giggled. "Always had so many nightmares Dana," he whimpered. "Just needed you."

"I know, it's okay," she promised him, stroking his hair and pulling his head up to look into his eyes. "You don't have to apologise, not now. I instigated it as many times in that desert as you. I have nightmares too, Fox. Horrible dreams, you know that." He nodded, brushing his thumb over her lower lip as she spoke. "None of them dreamed like we did, they knew that. I explained it to Monica once; she would have told John. Gibson knew. They understood. I'd do it all over again if I had to, but if I had a choice I wouldn't, and you know why?"

"Because having sex in a sleeping bag in the sand with your friends a hundred metres away just to feel connected to a world that has all but ended is satisfying yet uncomfortable?"

"Very uncomfortable," she laughed, scratching his scalp affectionately as outside a loud clap of thunder announced the arrival of the force of the storm. Mulder felt her flinch and reached for her hand, squeezing it, careful to avoid the stitches on the tip of her index finger.

"We're safe in here Dana," he promised. "If there is a hurricane it won't be here until later, and it'll be a category two at most, and we're in the interior of a building constructed like the pentagon. For now I think it's just a tropical storm."

"Just," she teased.

"If we're lucky we'll sleep through the worst of it."

"I'm okay," she assured him, brushing her lips over his and resting their joined hands on his hip, pulling him over her until she lay on her back. "Are you?" she asked, briefly worried that he had been startled by the thunder as much as she had. He nodded, leaning forward to join their lips once again as he stroked the soft skin of her inner thighs, urging them to part.

"We haven't experienced a good hurricane in a while," he whispered. "Bring it on."


	8. Chapter 8

Eight

Shannon stood with her arms crossed on top of a sand dune as she watched the five adults make their way along the crest of the cliff, trying to find a way around the obstacle that had forced them to head for the coast in the first place. Shannon could not believe they had only just made it back after so much time.

"Y'all are the slowest bunch of middle-aged mortals I ever saw!" she yelled across the crevice, her hands up around her mouth. She saw them all freeze and look her way. She knew even Gibson was surprised because she had set all her thoughts aside in preparation for the surprise, though he was the only one to wave happily at her when he saw her, so perhaps he had heard her compartmentalising sooner than she had assumed.

"HEY!" he shouted back. "How the hell are we meant to get down here?"

Shannon pointed to her left and set off at a fast pace.

xxx 

"Jeez that woman can run," John groaned as she watched Shannon sprint through the desert out of sight.

"How do you think she got back here?" Gibson asked dryly. "She could run for years without ever stopping."

"Jealous," Monica sighed, her arms wrapped around her son who was sitting in a fabric sling around her body, awake and sucking on her hair as he looked around. She pulled his hat further down over his brown, curly hair. "So are we going to wait here for her or should we go that way too?"

"She's coming to us, but we can start walking that way," Gibson answered. "She knows a way."

"If she knows a way why didn't we take it when we got here the first time?" John huffed.

"Because she realised where we were and what we would be close to," Gibson replied. "She knew it would be by the coast, and she needed to check in there. It was a good thing we took the detour. If we hadn't, then Mulder and Scully would still be with us, and when we got to the processing centre she would have been taken away. Shannon told me that if that had happened it might have been bad for her."

"Why? She would just be made to work on the program as a scientist, right?" John asked.

"Yes but, well, Shannon knows a lot of those people who already work on the program, and think about it; mostly all male doctors and no women around. She said a few tried to even touch her up after her transformation, like she couldn't rip their head off if she really wanted to, and Scully would have been too good a target. She couldn't even get pregnant."

"That's disgusting," Sarah hissed. Gibson shrugged.

"That's what Shannon told me."

"Are we sure we trust her?" Monica asked cautiously, aware of the relationship Shannon had with Skinner and John. "Are we sure all these stories aren't a manipulation to fulfil her own agenda?"

"Her agenda is our agenda," Gibson replied. "To defeat the supersoldiers. We are all involved in that now. The stories aren't a manipulation. I was there to put it together with her. She's good at cutting parts of her thoughts off, but she can't cut me out completely. And she isn't faking liking us. She came back to help, didn't she? I think she missed-"

"OI!" Shannon exclaimed from below them as she scrambled up a narrow ledge of the cliff. John peered down warily. There was no way in hell he was taking his infant son down that cliff, and if that's what Shannon was going to ask them to do she had a few choice words coming to her. "This way!" she added, hauling herself over the edge with her bare hands. Monica watched any small cuts that still existed heal straight away, and they met each other's eyes. Shannon was smiling widely and Monica looked pensive, her brown eyes wide and worn. "I thought I would have to run a lot further to catch up with all of you. What happened? It's been a week and you've made the same ground we did in three days."

"I guess we're all just pretty tired," Gibson answered, aware everyone else was suddenly embarrassed by their slow progress and the very human reasons behind it, emotions Shannon no longer truly understood. "Do you really want us to go down that way?"

"I can abseil you all down and then I can take Nicholas down with me," she assured them, turning to John and Monica as they opened their mouths in surprise and defiance. "I would protect him with my life," she added seriously, even though her life could never be in danger. Not until they were closer to the magnetite. Gibson sighed. She should not have come back.

"What are you doing here, Shannon?" he asked, voicing his concern. "It's dangerous for you to keep going."

"I'm not going to stay," Shannon replied, frowning. "I thought you would like an update."

"You came all this way for an update?" Sarah asked, sceptical.

"I could go back, if you want," she teased. Sarah immediately paled.

"No, no, update us, please."

"First, we descend this God-awful cliff before you all pike. Who's got rope?"

"I do," Skinner mumbled, put out by her sudden reappearance just when he had gotten used to the fact that she would no longer be around. Maybe this time they could say goodbye properly, he reasoned, but he did not much feel like submitting himself to her strength. That had never been his style. But then again, she was not a woman, she was a soldier, and they were a crew, and he trusted her. Skinner sighed. So much for clean breaks.

Once Skinner had handed her the ropes and she had tested their strength, brand new and never used, she had started looking around for something to keep them away from the rough, sandy edge. As she searched, she shouted off the order in which they would all be going down. Gibson and Sarah were to go first as they were the lightest and Sarah would need somebody with her to stop her slamming into the rock. They would be followed by Skinner, John, Monica and then their bags. Finally, she would climb down with Nicholas.

Half an hour later, Gibson wrapped his hands around the rope and silently thanked Scully for leaving them some cream; the rope was tough and slick, and they would all have raw palms. But that was nothing compared to what they might have sustained had they had to climb down themselves. Because Sarah was so much taller than Gibson, she would be behind him on the way down, and he would be between her and the rocks. Her feet would theoretically scrape the cliff-face below his, but it was Gibson who was controlling the rope and it was Gibson she was tied to.

Shannon was standing back from the edge holding two separate ropes. One was tied around Gibson and Sarah and the other they would use to scale down. She would need to lower one slowly while maintaining the other, but she had no fear of being pulled over or letting the ropes slip in her hands. Her palms were not sweaty and her grip was strong; she held the ropes like a steel vice.

"Ready when you are," she called to them. "Sarah just go really slow. It's okay. I've got you."

"Oh God, oh God, oh God," Sarah whispered in Gibson's ear as she edged backwards in darkness, feeling the backs of her heel curl over the edge. Neither Sarah nor Gibson had ever abseiled before and Gibson was doing his best not to become overwhelmed by Sarah's fear. She was holding onto his waist so tightly he was having trouble breathing. Nobody had ever held onto him like that before and for it to be somebody so pretty and sweet-

And SCARED, you moron! His conscience berated him and he growled, swallowing his own fear as Sarah was forced to lean slightly backwards to get over the edge. He was right behind her, or in front of her, depending on how the situation was analysed.

Put it this way, he told himself, if she slips and pushes you forward your glasses breaking are going to be the least of your worries.

"Just take it nice and slow!" Skinner was telling them, crouched over the edge to keep a very close eye on his blind niece. Perhaps not having her sight was a plus, he reassured himself. She had no way of knowing just how far from the bottom she really was. 'Don't look down' meant nothing to her. Everywhere was down. Or did that make it worse, he wondered?

"How much further?" she hissed in Gibson's ear after they were only a metre from the top.

"Quite a long way," he mumbled, trying to remember not to stop holding onto the lowering rope to hold onto the harness Shannon had constructed that was giving him an insanely painful wedgie. The harness was stable. It was the second rope he had to slowly slide them down and he forced both hands to grip it gently as Shannon lowered them.

The cliff-face itself, Gibson soon realised, was not as hazardous as it looked. There were places for them to put their feet, though Sarah was obviously having more trouble and was content to let her sandals slide in time with Gibson's own movements.

When Gibson finally realised they were only a few metres from the ground and that Shannon had done almost all the hard work he grinned. Sarah was shaking behind him, so much so that when she should have been able to put her feet on the ground first she could not bring herself to do it, and as Gibson got to his feet she landed on her backside in the sand.

"Oh my God, thank God," she inhaled, covering her face with her hands and shaking her head. Gibson reached over to untie her from him without thinking about invading her personal space and she helped him, also not bothered. She sniffled and smiled up at him. "Thank you," she whispered with a wide smile, and Gibson grinned. He had never felt more like Mulder in all his life.

"Yeah, woot!" John had called down from above them. Gibson laughed as he untied himself and let the rope free. Shannon hauled it quickly back up as Gibson gave John a thumbs-up. He could not believe how far away they looked from down there, and he knew Sarah was not the only person who was going to have a problem with the task. Monica was going to just die.

Skinner and John, though they hesitated at the top, regressed back to their military training days without much stress, and Shannon had been able to lower them faster. The combined time of their descent was not even half the time it had taken Gibson and Sarah. Skinner walked to Sarah as soon as he untied himself and hugged her tightly, making sure she knew she was safe and that they had gotten over the hardest part. Gibson smiled, shaking John's hand once he too was down. They both turned their attention upwards quickly.

Monica found herself at the top with Shannon, their bags and her baby, and she bit her lower lip as she let Shannon tie her into the makeshift harness of rope.

"This is gonna hurt, by the way," Shannon mumbled. "But not as much as it hurt your husband." Monica laughed, moving Nicky to the side of her to watch Shannon tying firm, strong knots. They were the same knots she had used for the others, but Monica realised with a panic that she had no idea how the others had untied themselves. "Just pull this bit when you get down," Shannon added as though she had heard the question. "But not until you want the knot to come undone, understood? Until then, it's as strong as anything. And there are two, so if one comes accidentally undone the other should hold. Now remember, I'll be lowering you. You really just need to hold on and use the drop rope and the cliff for balance."

"I don't know what we're going to do without you," Monica gushed as Shannon reached out for Nicky. Monica removed the sling from around her and watched Shannon balance the baby in one arm and the sling in the other. It was Monica's turn to help her coordinate and once Nicky was settled she did her best to relax. He turned around to stare at his mom with wide eyes and Monica's heart broke. She leant forward and kissed his temple, again making sure his hat was safe against his head. "It's okay if he gets a few scratches," she whispered, making sure Shannon knew there would be no hard feelings. "But, please, don't let him fall."

Shannon clasped her hand around Monica's wrist as Monica stood back up until they were eye level.

"He won't fall," she stated, her voice serious and slow, her eyes unmoving. Monica blinked back tears and nodded, stepping away and watching Shannon regather the ropes and go through a quick procedure to check everything had been set up correctly. "Have you done this before?" she asked Monica. "I knew Walter and John would have no trouble but-" Monica shook her head as she gripped the rope she would use to lower herself.

"But I'll be right," she promised. "Gentle hands." Shannon nodded, smiling when Monica blew Nicky a kiss and shut her eyes, taking a deep breath and leaning backwards over the edge, searching for safe ground with her feet, putting all her trust in the supersoldier with her son. Progress was slow and steady as the rope which lowered her fed through Shannon's hand above. It felt safe, and after just a few metres Monica began to relax. If she panicked, she would only risk losing her footing against the cliff. Shannon would catch her in the harness within a second, but she did not like the thought of dangling helplessly.

"Wow," Gibson whispered as he watched Monica. "She's doing really well for a first-timer."

"Don't call out to her," John told him. "She's probably meditating her way down." Gibson chuckled. John had no idea how true that really was.

Gibson did not believe he had ever underestimated John and Monica; it was hard to under or over estimate people when you could read their minds, but they were different to Mulder and Scully. They were much more 'normal'. Thanksgiving at their home had been a warm and happy experience Gibson had never had in his own life until they had invited him out of the blue once they were settled in Texas after running from New Mexico. It had been a real, traditional Thanksgiving, and they did not have a reinforced safety bunker in their basement.

They knew and loved each other as well and as much as Mulder and Scully. It was just that they had never been separated so often or under such dangerous conditions as Mulder and Scully. They had never really been tested that way. Their emotions were much less extreme because they had always had each other, and Gibson did feel it was easier to relax around them compared to Mulder and Scully. They were mellow. Especially since the baby had come and John stopped stressing. While Gibson knew Mulder would have been an amazing father, John as a father was also a pretty cool guy to hang with. He had loosened up a lot.

When Monica was just a couple of metres from the ground he walked over and rested a hand on her hip. She turned her head and grinned at him.

"Take it I'm nearly there," she whispered, her voice shaking to give away her nerves. John nodded, helping her get her balance on the ground and quickly untying her.

"Is he okay?" John asked worriedly, glancing upwards. Monica nodded, resting one hand against his cheek and leaning forward for a quick but tender kiss. John grinned as he pulled from her. "You're that glad to be down huh?" he teased.

"Just realised I hadn't done that yet today," she told him, stepping away from the belt and holding it out so that Shannon, who was peering over the edge from above, could see that she was free to haul it back up.

Their five bags came down in one go, all tied together by the rope looped through their back straps. It took Skinner and Gibson to untie Shannon's knots and release them all, and Monica held her breath as the ropes finally disappeared. She and John stepped back from the group so that they could watch properly as Shannon came down the way she had gotten up.

They saw her pace the edge a few times, and guessed it was to try to find the way down with the most footholds. It was not that Shannon needed something big to grab hold of to steady herself, but she did need rock that would support her weight. Monica was glad she was taking the time to make sensible decisions, but it looked like she had moved the sling around so that Nicky was cuddled up against her back. If Shannon descended the rocks facing them, it meant that if she fell, she would land on top of Monica's little boy.

"I don't think I can watch," she hissed, even though she could not make herself draw her eyes away from Shannon's pacing.

"Shannon's not afraid," Gibson replied.

"Gibson," John huffed. "I saw another supersoldier put his hand right through Shannon until it came out of her stomach and though she looked surprised, she did NOT look afraid. She could jump off the Empire State Building and feel no fear. That does NOT mean Nicky is safe."

"Just give her a chance," Gibson urged. "We never could have done this on our own. We might've had to walk days to get around it."

Monica turned into John and hid her face in his neck as Shannon finally eased herself over the edge like a bear, finding the first holds for her hands and feet easily. John stroked Monica's back as he forced himself to watch. One of them had to. This was the most important thing in their lives, and something John never thought he could have again, and it, their son, was in the hands of a woman who was not afraid to take risks because she could not die. How could that possibly translate so quickly into needing to take precautions because she held a very vulnerable life in her hands? His heart lurched as he saw Shannon make a very slow decision to move a step away from them.

"It's okay," Gibson whispered, his voice shaking as he had to balance Skinner, John and Monica's fears against Shannon's keen concentration. "She's taking her time. Where she picked will hold. She's sure of it."

"Gibson," John mumbled, his eyes not leaving Shannon. "Do us a favour and don't talk until he's back with his mom." He could have just thought his words and Gibson appreciated him saying it out loud even if it was kind of harsh, but Gibson did not need to be a mind-reader to understand how frightened that mother was. Monica had never turned her eyes from anything in his presence before. She had always fought head-on.

But a baby was different to all of those other things, he reminded himself, thinking briefly to when Nicky had been born, and all the tears he had witnessed; tears of happiness in one woman and tears of torture in the other. Nicky had brought out the most extreme, exposed emotions in his friends, so he could allow Monica her fear. She knew what Scully had given up. She knew what John had lost in losing his first son. She knew the dangers of their travels. She knew all of those fears, and with her son she was more vulnerable than she had ever been without him.

So Gibson nodded in response to John's comment and turned respectfully to watch Shannon descend. One of her feet slipped only once and despite John's sharp intake of breath the space around them was completely silent. Shannon could hold her weight on her fingertips if necessary, Gibson knew that even if the others did not quite believe it. She regained herself quickly and kept moving, and in the end she made the whole ordeal look simple. She jumped the short distance to the ground and then looked over her shoulder to see Nicky staring at her. Readjusting the sling so he was against her chest, she lifted him out effortlessly and settled him on her hip, walking him the several metres back to his parents.

"Here's mommy," she declared happily, handing him to Monica, who was grinning excitedly. She cuddled him to her chest as Shannon smiled, watching on. "Not even a peep out of him the whole way," Shannon complimented, and as if on cue Nicky started to wail.

"Think he wanted to impress you with his bravery," John teased. "But mommy broke him."

xxx 

They set up camp that night in the middle of the long valley, which Shannon told them she suspected remained low and flat for most of the rest of the journey.

"Try and go through Mexico City," she reminded them. "It will be a good place to restock."

"I can show you where I grew up," Monica announced happily as she sat beside John on their sleeping bag breastfeeding Nicky.

John smiled at her. He had only been to Mexico with her to visit her adopted family a few times, the first after fleeing New Mexico and then at Easters. His parents had insisted on Christmas. Monica did not mind when they were sorting out the social calendar. She had laughed. 'John, you realise we'll be going to Church whether we go at Easter or at Christmas, and there'll be presents either way, so I don't mind a bit.' Her willingness to compromise had relaxed him; nothing ever seemed to really faze her, and that afternoon watching Nicky come down the cliff with Shannon was the most afraid he had seen her, period.

"Shannon, come on," Sarah urged after a companionable period of silence as they all contemplated a visit to Mexico City. Suddenly they had somewhere to get to again. That made the task ahead seem easier. "Stop stalling. What happened with Mulder and Scully? Did they get to go on the boat?"

"Yeah we all piled on."

"You 'piled' onto a sixty foot schooner?" Skinner teased. "I'm sure it was a real tight fit."

"Do you guys want the truth or the dulled-down version?" Shannon asked bluntly.

"The truth," John sighed. Shannon smirked.

"Haven't seen 'em that happy since the day Mulder came home in Virginia. You couldn't wipe the grin off Dana's face. I mean they were both unhappy they had to leave you, but they didn't have a choice, and Dana was telling me all about growing up with her dad in the Navy and going on all sorts of boats and learning to sail, blah, blah, blah."

"Oh!" Skinner drawled. "I didn't think of that. So the trip was all right?"

"Yeah, nobody drowned," Shannon laughed. "They're at the processing centre now probably enjoying the solitude. It's been battened down for the storm, which I think might have hit the day before last. It'll be too choppy for anyone to get out there to deal with them for a few more days, so they've got the run of the place. I'm not sure whether they were excited or suspicious when I locked them in."

"You locked them in?" Sarah gasped.

"Don't worry; it's a fortress. It will withhold a pissy little Category Two when it develops, and there are heaps of supplies there and lots of space. Oh, and Mulder did NOT throw up. Dana was running around like a pro, navigating and checking the whole place out like it was a crime scene. I don't think she thought she'd ever see a boat like that again."

"That is pretty cool," John admitted. "For her, that she got that again." Shannon nodded, frowning as she pondered what else to say to perhaps try to lessen the difference between the two situations. She was not sure what she could say though, because there was a giant difference. It was night. Scully and Mulder had likely had a shower, if they had discovered them in working order, and a healthy dinner and gone to bed to perhaps the sound of heavy rain and strong winds, but everyone else was camping in the middle of dry, dusty Mexico once again. Nothing had really changed for them, and Shannon knew that it sucked.

"I guess you gotta look at it this way," she reasoned. "They're gonna go down to Antarctica with a really small bunch of people and, yeah, they might have it a bit easier in some respects, but it's going to be lonely and cold and they'll have responsibilities there with little outside support. You guys, it might take longer to get to where you're going, but you'll be surrounded by families and hard workers and people you can socialise with and share your responsibilities with. And the luxuries that Mulder and Dana might have that you don't, well they've only got them now because of what was done to Dana in the past, and I reckon they would switch places if they could without a second thought."

"You're right, they would," Monica whispered, looking down at her son as he suckled hungrily against her. He had not one scrape on his delicate face and she remembered the night she and Scully had found William at the bottom of a crater created by an alien spacecraft, dead bodies around him. He had suffered not a scratch then, too, and Monica remembered how Scully had clung tightly to him. How much she had loved her own little boy, and how hard she had cried in giving him away. "We can't feel so sorry for ourselves," she added, nudging John with her knee. "We have something much more precious."

"Yeah," he agreed, leaning over to brush Nicky's curls away from his forehead. He let his finger gently stray onto Monica's breast briefly, before pulling away. She smiled at him as he caught her eyes. "I'm not feeling so sorry for myself," he promised. "Just worn out. Bag's a lot heavier than it was a week ago and morale around here's taken a bit of a dive."

"We're not really that badly off," Sarah reminded them. "We've got the same rations of food and water that we've always had and we could maybe make it to Mexico City in, what do you think Shannon, a month?"

"Not if you keep setting the pace you have been," Shannon taunted.

"Hang on," Skinner began, scratching his head with confusion. "Did you say just before it will take us longer to get where we're going? It will only take a few months to get to Ecuador. But Antarctica is three times the distance at least."

"They're not going to be walking there Walter," Shannon teased, reaching over and massaging his tense shoulders with strong fingers. He resisted the urge to lean into her like she knew he wanted, but she would make it up to him that night. She was happy to see him, and she knew that underneath herself she was more than just happy, but she could not get to those places in her anymore. She had tried for him, she really had, but she just couldn't. She hated that.

"Can you sail a yacht down the coast of supersoldier territory?" Sarah asked. "I mean I thought that was the whole reason we were meant to be avoiding the coasts; that was where the supersoldiers had set themselves up past the equator because it was away from the magnetite which was inland."

"That's all true, and they're not taking the yacht. The diplomatic privileges, if they pass their examinations, will give Mulder and Dana access to use, let's call it the private jet, shall we?"

"Planes can't land on Antarctica," John stated with a confused frown. Shannon smirked.

"This one can," she promised, delighting in watching them all think. Monica got there first, followed quickly by Skinner. Gibson joined in only because he had the benefit of their thoughts. "Serious!" she laughed, when she saw the disbelieving expressions on their faces.

"You couldn't organise that for us?" Skinner huffed playfully as Shannon continued to laugh.

"Sorry. It wouldn't have even come into things if I hadn't had Gibson with me that day to point out Dana would never make it through your processing centre. I've never seen the private jet; I'm sure it's not exactly like what you're thinking. Their processing will take longer, but they'll be in Antarctica in a flash."

"Did you tell them that?" Skinner asked curiously.

"Hell no," she huffed. "Didn't want to scare them. They'll find out soon enough. I figured they should enjoy one thing at a time."

"So they got there safe and were happy?" Monica asked hopefully. Shannon softened, nodding.

"They were a little nervous," she conceded. "But mostly very happy, and very safe. The hurricane won't hurt them as long as they stay in the room assigned to them like they were told."

"Oh good," Skinner laughed. "Relying on Mulder and Scully to do what they are told. Hmm...That doesn't sound like my agents, sorry!"

xxx 

"I'm so glad you came back," Skinner whispered as Shannon massaged his back that night. He had fallen asleep with the rest of camp only to be woken by her leaning over him and whispering for him not to make a noise that would wake the others up. Even Gibson had fallen fast asleep. In a rare moment, they had some privacy.

"I know," Shannon replied, straddling his hips and leaning forward to brush her lips over the shell of his ear. His glasses were off and folded, resting on his nearby bag, and he rested his head on crossed arms, his face turned to one side. She saw him smile and kissed his cheek more tenderly as she dug her fingers into his shoulders. She was always careful not to hurt him, but his muscles were so sore he really did need to be hurt a little to feel any improvement. "I'd come with you the whole way if I could," she promised. "But I'd die."

"I know," he hissed, rolling onto his side and urging her to lie down beside him. She did, propping her head up on one hand as her elbow sunk into the sand beside his sleeping bag.

Skinner rested his hand on her waist and she sucked in a breath. Her body liked it a lot when he touched her. She was not a normal human, her mind did not lust for sex or become aroused, but she could shut that part of her down and let her body become aroused if she wanted. None of the other supersoldiers seemed to be able to do it, but she still had feeling, and she missed the feelings she had lost. It empowered her to try to get some of them back.

Skinner had never expected her to sleep with him; she had come to him the first time, asking if they could try it, making no promises. Her body was so attracted to him that she knew her mind had been capable of that once, but the fluttering of her heart did not communicate with her brain. She always kept her eyes closed when he touched her, because the first time they had been together he had looked into her eyes and seen nothing. He had pulled away.

'No, I want this, I do.'

'There's no desire in your face, Shannon. I won't use you. This isn't some pity screw.'

'This isn't pity, Walter. I know I want you. I just can't 'think' it. I'm attracted to you. You know I can't explain it. I was a mistake of the project, there's nobody to compare me to, and I just want to feel you. There's a weakness in my makeup and-'

'It's not a weakness. It's a strength. They don't know what they're doing with that project, taking what makes us human away from us when what makes us human gives us the real power to fight wars and to end them. Sometimes they haven't ended so well, but they should never, ever have tried to take what makes you human away from you.'

'I signed up, you know,' she had admitted then. 'The thought of being immortal, straight out of duty, it was an offer too good to refuse. It sounded too good to turn down, and I'm not sure they would have let me. They wanted a woman and a man. Adam and Eve.'

'Do you really want to try this? Are you sure?' She had nodded. 'Then please, Shannon, shut your eyes, and try to explain to me what you feel.'

He had kissed her then, and in the brief time they'd had that first sexual relationship he had taught her how to redefine her feelings, to be able to live with what she could sense underneath. He had helped her identify that layer of herself she had always known still existed. She had been happy with that, at first, but then it got complicated. He had been falling for her, and she couldn't fall. She knew she wanted to, she knew underneath she cared for him and desired him, but her brain was not willing, and that was the most important part. She'd had no choice but to step away, to leave.

But when the time had come to decide who to save, she had not bothered to stop and think.

"I love you," she whispered without warning. Skinner's eyes widened as he stared at her with an open mouth, and she was so stunned by what she had said that she was sure her expression mirrored his. She touched her lips with shaking fingertips as he pushed himself up to sitting.

"What did you just say?" he asked, his voice hopeful but disbelieving. Skinner thought he was going mad. Had she just said, 'I love you'? The closest she had ever come before was, 'I know I care about you'. And there was a big difference between 'I know I care' and 'I care'.

Shannon had also sat up and had covered her face with her hands. Her long, dark hair fell forward to mask her from him and though he wanted to reach out and touch her, he stopped himself. What if she had just said it because she thought it was what he wanted to hear, or what if she realised she had said it but didn't actually 'feel' it. What if she had meant 'I love you' to really be 'I know I love you', and it had just come out wrong? She could be afraid to look at him because of the blankness of her blue eyes, or she could be-

Skinner's thoughts froze when she looked up and he saw the tears on her cheeks. Shannon McMahon NEVER cried. She simply couldn't. She felt nothing deeply enough to inspire such a basic, human reaction. Skinner reached out and touched her cheek, feeling the warm tears against his fingertips. They were real, he realised. Hot and wet. She sobbed, pulling away and scrambling to her feet. She started walking away, her arms crossed over her chest.

What the fuck? Skinner also got to his feet.

"Shannon!" he shouted, not thinking about the people asleep around him. She turned and hushed him hurriedly, putting a finger over her lips. He took that as an invitation and ran to her in the sand.

"What's going on?" Sarah hissed in Gibson's direction, their sleeping bags close together. She sensed he was awake.

"Uh," he choked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and hurrying to catch up. "Uh... Uh-oh."

"Uh-oh?" John whispered from the other side of Gibson. "What do you mean uh-oh? That sound is totally banned from this camp. Nobody says uh-oh."

"Well then 'shh' and let me listen!" he huffed.

Many metres away, Skinner was holding Shannon firmly by her elbows. Her head was turned down. She could not look him in the eye. Skinner's heart was beating firmly in his chest. She had never not looked him directly in the eyes. Something was terribly wrong. He needed to know.

"Shannon," he urged. "Please, honey look at me." Skinner's breath left him as her blue eyes lifted and he saw fresh tears there, a response to the use of a pet name he had done his best to avoid. No attachment, he had always reminded himself. Just companionship and affection. No emotional attachment.

Screw that, he realised, reaching up and stroking her cheek with his thumb, brushing her tears away and shaking his head in confusion.

"Shannon, what's the matter?"

"I don't know," she whispered, reaching up and gripping his hand. "I don't know, I don't know. I don't know what happened. When you put your hand on my waist I was just thinking back to how we got started, and how you said what was wrong with me wasn't a weakness, but a strength, and then I thought about how even though I left I had to come back and save you and it just, it just came out."

"What came out?" he pressed gently. "Say it again."

"I..." Shannon hesitated and Skinner's knees buckled when he saw her fight with herself not to keep crying. Her eyes drifted from him and he grabbed her jaw, perhaps more forcefully than he should have, but he knew he couldn't hurt her. He couldn't hurt her, right? Her eyes flickered with something that might have been pain, but more likely it was just surprise. He wrapped a strong arm around her waist and held her close so that their bodies were lightly touching. He could feel her heart beating quickly; he could feel her rapid breath pushing her breasts up against him.

"Tell me what you said, Shannon," he urged. "Tell me how you feel."

"I love you," she whispered. Skinner had never been more certain about anything in his life, and he sighed, pulling her into a hug. She sobbed into his shoulder and held him tightly, but not too tightly. "I love you," she repeated. "I love you, I love you, I love you."

"Shh," he soothed, stroking her hair and her back, pulling her securely against him. No woman had said they loved him since happier days with his ex-wife, who he had not seen for a decade. In other words, hearing 'I love you' had been a fact of ancient history. Skinner had forgotten how it felt to hear it from somebody he cared equally for. Somebody he had never been allowed to love actually loved him, and it was the last thing he had ever expected to hear. "It's okay," he promised before she had a chance to pull away. "Don't be scared."

"I don't know what's wrong," she wept into his neck. "Walter, I-"

"Is it real?" he asked seriously. "You can tell me if it's not. I won't be upset."

"I think it is," she admitted weakly, pulling her face from his shoulder and staring into his eyes. She looked so lost, he realised, and confused. He had never seen her look at him like that before. She was looking at him like a woman, not a soldier. There was only one way to really find out if what she was feeling was real, and he let his thumb drag over her lower lip.

"Then you better kiss me and find out," he offered. She had never enjoyed kissing. Skinner had always stayed at her neck. Her knuckles had been another favoured, tender spot. He had always enjoyed touching her body, but she found kissing uncomfortable and unnecessary. It had never aroused her like touching other parts of her had. "Do you want to?" he asked. She bit her lower lip and nodded, and he lifted one of her hands to his cheek.

Breathing heavily, she leant forward and touched her lips to his in a kiss that was at once both unfamiliar and filled with anticipation. Skinner kissed her back cautiously but surely enough to let her know that he had wanted to kiss her again since that first disastrous try. He had tried so hard not to be disappointed in himself. He had wanted it to be better even though he knew her failure to appreciate the act had not been his fault. But when Shannon took the submissive route and opened her lips against his, Skinner knew something had changed in her. When she groaned deeply at the feel of his tongue against hers he was sold. She had never been vocal with him before. He kissed her with as much passion as he could muster then, and his heart felt like it cracked at the sensation of her matching him, matching his passion, his love.

"Uh-oh big time," Gibson announced more surely at the camp. He had rolled onto his stomach and put his glasses on, and was actively watching Skinner and Shannon make out in the darkness. They were nothing more than black shadows but filling in blanks had never been a problem for him. "Oh, I'm confused," he sighed, resting his chin on folded hands. Everybody else was awake and also straining to see.

"What's going on?" Monica hissed. She was the furthest away. She could see nothing.

"Skinner and Shannon," John replied.

"What?" Monica asked. "Are they having sex?"

"No," Gibson drawled cautiously. "Something happened. I missed it, I was sleeping."

"What?" Sarah pressed. "What happened, Gibson?"

"I don't think they know," he answered simply.

Shannon pulled from the kiss suddenly as the desire for air became too great. Skinner held her cheek to his as they panted, their lips swollen and their stomachs filled with need. Shannon was moving her hips against his and could feel him there, wanting her. She whimpered as tears of confusion began to pound at her sinuses.

"I feel like I'm in pain," she admitted. "I can't breathe."

"Stay calm," he urged. "Nothing's changed. You can breathe. Just don't panic."

"Walter," she huffed. He pulled his head back to look at her and she stared at him. "Do you love me?" she asked. It was not desperate. She could have been asking him the time. He nodded, smiling softly and watching her expression, drinking in the new emotions he saw there. The 'real' emotions he saw there. What had changed? He wasn't sure he cared.

"Yes," he whispered, sighing as she ducked her head forward and pecked his lips repetitively and affectionately of her own accord. "Yes Shannon, I love you."


	9. Chapter 9

Nine

Gibson sat cross-legged in the sand beside Skinner's sleeping bag as the sun rose the next morning. Behind him, John was shaving and Monica was having something to eat before Nicky woke up hungry. Sarah was sitting beside Monica softly stroking Nicky's hair; Scully and Monica had teamed up to cut it just once, and it was getting long again, Gibson realised. The kid had a lot of hair. He had Monica's hair. He looked like John but for his colouring.

Gibson allowed himself to smile at his thoughts without turning around. He was focussed very much on the person still asleep in front of him. The morning routine was in full swing just behind him, but voices had been kept lowered as soon as his waking friends had realised one person they had never expected to see sleeping was curled up in Skinner's sleeping bag.

And where was Skinner? Not far, if Gibson heard correctly. He had just gone for a walk. He had his compass, not that he would need it considering he was barely two hundred metres away. Gibson could just see him in the distance. Skinner was confused and frightened. He had woken up to find Shannon asleep as well, and it was something else he could not explain. Shannon could shut her eyes and doze when there was nothing better for her to do, and Gibson knew she could have dreams in those periods, but she never 'slept'.

He had resisted the urge to wake her for so long but it was becoming unbearable. He leaned forward over his crossed legs until his face was almost as close to the ground as hers. She was turned to face him, her tanned skin obscured by her dark hair. He narrowed his eyes behind his glasses as he peered into her.

Then her eyes opened. She did not flinch at his closeness, which was less than a ruler's length. Gibson heard her waking thoughts instantly and remained pensive, though he did sit up to give her more space.

"Was I sleeping?" she asked, sitting up and rubbing the base of her palms over her eyes. Gibson raised his eyebrows curiously, doing his best not to laugh. Everyone behind him had frozen at the sound of her voice and they were all staring at her, wondering. He was wondering too. Shannon did not seem in a hurry to answer any questions though, and she looked around her. "Where's Walter?"

"Out that way," Gibson replied, pointing and watching her follow the line of his finger. "Want me to get him?" Shannon rolled her lips together, torn between going to Skinner herself or letting Gibson call for him. In the end she remained seated and silently told Gibson to get him back. She did not know what was going to happen. She did not understand what already had.

Gibson wished Scully had still been there. She would have been able to come up with something scientific to explain the declaration of love he had overheard the previous night. And if Mulder had been there, he would have come up with something less scientific.

Skinner turned hurriedly when Gibson called, and he saw Gibson waving him over. He reluctantly stood and trudged forward, but his pace quickened when he realised Shannon was sitting up in his sleeping bag, finally awake just as the sun made itself known to the desert, showing its bright face over the horizon.

"Everyone's up," Gibson stated. Nobody else knew what the hell to say, Shannon and Skinner included. "I think we should have a talk about what happened last night."

"Yeah, what's goin' on?" John queried. Skinner frowned at him.

"How do 'you' know anything is going on?" he asked. He expected Gibson to know, but not John.

"They were all awake," Gibson replied bluntly, saving John the trouble of saying something that would only make Skinner more frustrated. "You woke everyone up when you called out to her. Including me. I caught up, they didn't. I think we have a problem."

"What sort of problem?" Sarah asked softly, worried about questioning her uncle and his semi-girlfriend who was somewhat of a machine. Whatever they did in their private lives was none of her business, but she knew Gibson never worried unless there was a reason to.

After all, he had never made Scully and Mulder talk openly about the times they had gone away in the middle of the night to be alone. It had never been brought up amongst the group, at least not in their presence. For Gibson to be doing so with Skinner and Shannon, for him to announce 'uh-oh' the night before; something had happened, she was sure of it.

Something bad for them.

Gibson reached over and rested a hand on her knee then, to calm her, and she knew he had heard her. She briefly let her fingers rest on top of his hand but quickly pulled them away, afraid of what he would think if she wanted to hold his hand.

Shannon rested a hand on the calf of Skinner's jeans and silently urged him to sit. She got out of the sleeping bag and they both sat on top of it as everyone else shuffled into their familiar 'group conference' circle. John picked up Nicky and held him as Monica put his hat on, but they were both listening intently while making sure their son would not be blinded by the quickly rising sun or burnt by its rays. Gibson sighed, looking around. Everybody was avoiding everyone else, and yet everybody did not know what he knew. And they had to.

"Do you want to tell them or should I?" he asked, looking over at Skinner and Shannon. He was not sure who he was meant to be talking to. Neither did they, apparently.

"I don't know what to say," Shannon whispered. "But I do...want to check something." Gibson knew what she wanted to do instantly and he nodded. She turned around and began to dig through Skinner's backpack. Inside was the medical box Scully had brought with her all the way from her bunker. Some things she had removed and taken with her when she left in the green bag of more serious supplies, but she had left even some of those behind with the group, all with extensive instructions and warnings. Shannon found the scalpel and held it up, examining it in the light. She wondered whether she was afraid.

She did not know what she was feeling. Was she afraid to cut herself? Yes and no. She could see her fingers shaking as though they weren't connected to her, and she turned back to the group and revealed to them what she had. They all watched in silence as Shannon carefully unpacked the scalpel and held her arm out over the sand, palm down.

Everybody sat in silence, even Sarah, who Gibson knew had every right to be asking what was happening around her, but she did not like to do that. She did not want anybody else to feel burdened about explaining. Gibson knew it was no burden, but he still refrained from commenting on what Shannon was doing; he did not want Sarah to protest.

Shannon felt the tip of the scalpel press against the skin halfway down her strong forearm. She tilted the blade and it sliced easily. She kept the wound shallow. Blood trickled just as it always had whenever she had been injured. Streaks of red hurried down the curve of her arm and dropped to the sand. She put the scalpel down in the sand and waited.

"Oh no," Skinner whispered when, after a minute, she was still bleeding. Shannon clenched her fist and frowned at it, focussing all of her energy on her cut, willing it to heal. Slowly, the wound began to close. She knew how the healing felt and she watched intently, but the process was slow, and she felt it more than she ever had. Such a tiny cut should not have even bothered her. Panic began to rise in her chest as she watched the skin seal together just as she had expected, but not just as she had expected.

For what was left on her arm had never been left before. Not since she had been changed.

A scar.

Shannon exhaled the breath she had been holding as Skinner reached for her arm and brought it right under his nose, staring underneath the frames of his round glasses at the pink skin etched taught. The scar was thin and something he ordinarily never would have noticed. It lightened to a shade paler than her usual skin tone, but it did not disappear. He watched it for another five minutes.

"What's going on?" Sarah finally asked. Gibson thought she never would. He wanted to talk.

"Last night," he replied, aware Shannon and Skinner did not mind. They were both just staring at her arm, speechless and afraid. Gibson returned his full attention to Sarah, again leaning over to touch her knee to let her know she had his full attention. "Last night and this morning I heard Shannon thinking like a person, and not like a supersoldier. She just cut her arm with one of Scully's scalpels she left us, and it took ages to heal, and it was just a small cut. And it's left a scar."

"Shannon you're gonna need to talk to us about what's goin' on," John announced seriously, as Skinner let go of her arm. She sighed, letting it come to rest in front of her, her fingers dragging through the sand marked by her blood. She looked up at John with clear, blue eyes and shook her head.

"I don't know what's going on," she answered. "I just don't know how this could happen."

"How what could happen?" Monica asked. "Why didn't your arm heal right away just now?"

"I didn't do anything different," Shannon mumbled, more to herself and Skinner. "It doesn't work that way."

"What doesn't?" Monica pressed. "Shannon, please talk to us. We're worried about you."

"I don't know if I can say anything to help," Shannon huffed, allowing herself to smile as she looked at Monica. "Except that I...I can 'hear' myself again."

"You can?" Skinner asked in a stunned whisper. Shannon grinned at him and nodded and he returned her wide smile, reaching up to smooth her tangled hair down her back.

"What do you mean?" Sarah asked curiously.

"Well I uh, when they made me into what I am I retained all my history and my memories. So all the things I had believed in and had felt were still in me, but it was smothered by my inability to believe and feel things in a current state. So for example, once in DC I accidentally walked in on Dana and she was crying, and I knew that I should go to her so I did and I hugged her. In my head I was so unaffected I could have been making the bed, but I could still hold her like I felt that I cared. And she gave me a look afterwards, as though it hadn't been real because she had also been able to feel that I had cared when she knew I really couldn't. Does that make sense?"

"Kind of," Sarah replied slowly, allowing herself to absorb the example. "So say somebody was dying, if you were in a war perhaps, and you knew them. You could sit beside them and hold their hand and know that you should care that they're dying, but you would never have any emotion in your conscious mind. Like you know you're sad inside but you can't express it because what's in your mind can't feel sadness, even though...your soul can?"

"That's the best way I can describe it," Shannon replied. "I've always known there were things 'underneath'. That's what my defect is in the supersoldier program. All of those things underneath are erased in the others. It's why I can understand trust and why I remember training exercises with John and why I know that killing people is wrong, that the whole supersoldier program is bound to fail."

"Okay, we get all that," Monica promised quickly. "What do you mean you can hear yourself again? You said you've always been aware of those things underneath."

"Aware of them, yes," Shannon sighed. "But I've never been able to feel them up here," she added, tapping her forehead. "Last night some of those things that were underneath resurfaced, and I don't think they're going to go away. I...I don't know if I want them to."

Monica sucked in a breath when she heard Shannon's strong voice falter and saw the tears gathering in her blue eyes. Shannon quickly turned her head to try to hide the unmilitary display but she could not turn away fast enough, and everybody had heard her voice break.

"Shannon," Skinner whispered, holding her upper arm firmly so that she did not run. He knew she wanted to. He could sense her thinking about how long it would take her to bolt just as she had tried to the night beforehand.

"Shut up, okay?" she exclaimed, tears streaking her cheeks as she looked up at him. He shook his head, reaching forward to brush away the wetness as more tears followed. "I can't stop it," she whispered, laughing when he smiled at her. "I can't stop crying. I don't know what's wrong with me."

"When was the last time you cried?" Monica asked gently, her mouth permanently open in shock as she watched Shannon trying to compose herself and Skinner tenderly brushing her cheeks and silently fussing over her.

Skinner and Shannon had been a part of their group for many months, and she had never seen them both so affectionate with one another. Something had definitely changed. She had turned her face towards his as though she was subconsciously asking for his protection. Monica had done it with John just the previous afternoon when Shannon had been in charge of Nicky. It was not the action of an immortal soldier who felt no fear or embarrassment.

"Maybe a tough day at basic training," Shannon reluctantly answered. "How long did I sleep for Gibson?"

"Hours," he mumbled, grimacing. "Shannon you don't really think you're becoming like us again, do you?"

"I can't be," she insisted firmly, frowning as she stared at the sand and the collection of torches and water bottles in the middle of their circle. "I was genetically altered. I'm not Pinocchio. You can't just reverse it. What was done to me is permanent."

"Then what happened?" Gibson asked. "Because I know I was asleep up until Skinner called for you, but it seems to me like you told him you loved him and then it all just crashed."

"You told him you loved him?" Sarah hissed, excited and amazed, her blind eyes widening. "Really? You mean it?"

"Of course I mean it," Shannon huffed, ducking her face as she blushed. Monica and John shared a wary glance.

"Uh-oh is right," Monica mumbled under her breath. John nodded seriously.

"Look, it can't possibly work like that Gibson," Skinner replied, resting his palm flat against Shannon's lower back as she recovered from her public admission. Supersoldier or not, announcing her love to a group had never been her style. A true supersoldier would have felt no embarrassment; they would have felt nothing.

"So what are we going to do?" John asked, eager to form some sort of plan. "I agree with Skinner in that I don't think her abilities are gone, but maybe they are going to have to live with everything else that has come back to her."

"Yes, of course!" Monica exclaimed enthusiastically, startling John as she grinned and focussed on Shannon. "Shannon, I know how badly you wanted to reach through sometimes and get to what was underneath. Dana told me some things you said to her before we met you again. What if, when you did reach that information, when you brought it back into your conscious mind and reconnected with it, well all of those things represent who you are; they represent your mortality. In accepting love you have to accept the possibility of great pain, and you have spent so much time with Dana...and it must have seemed like that came so naturally to her, and you wanted that for yourself with Walter. But now that you've got it, you cannot be immortal and accept mortal thoughts within yourself. So maybe you have to strike a balance between the abilities the alterations to your genes allow for, and...life."

"How did you know?" Sarah asked. "Did it just come to you?"

"I had just been reflecting," Shannon answered. "Words were out of my mouth before I understood what they meant, and then I...I had forgotten what it felt like to feel. It was like somebody had switched a part of my brain back on that had been muted and I...didn't feel as strong as I was used to, and now I can't stop crying. I am SO sorry."

"Don't apologise," John assured her, getting the feeling she was speaking more to him. He was her buddy from the army, and he knew the way their psyches had been programmed in training. She had been tough back then and she still was. Tears didn't make a person weak. Monica had taught him that. Shannon needed somebody to teach her that too, and it looked as though that person was Skinner. "Really," he promised. "You got nothin' to be ashamed about Shannon. We have all cracked it since this happened. A few tears are nothing compared to some of us." Particularly those who are no longer here, John added silently. Shannon nodded. She knew he was speaking the truth, but she took a deep breath and composed herself anyway.

"I just was not expecting this," she mumbled. "I was going to come back and tell you they got onto the island safely and then I was going to leave to start on my work. Suddenly I don't know if I'll be able to do that. I'm 'tired'. That's...that's unheard of."

"You couldn't have been injected with anything?" John asked. "Like what was injected into Mulder and Scully's son?"

"No, he was different to us," Shannon replied seriously. "Because of Mulder he wasn't a supersoldier, he was a perfect hybrid, and I haven't been near anyone. On the boat it was myself, Dana, Mulder and a friend I worked with at the military who is helping us. He's the one that erased Dana's name from the database of test DNA. Gibson met him. I didn't sleep or eat. We sailed through the night. I showed them around, dropped them off, then hopped on the boat to come back here but it was taking too long so I jumped over and swam, and then I ran, and I didn't see anybody or anything else along the way."

"You were in a hurry to get back," Gibson mentioned. "You never thought you would come back."

"I didn't decide to until I left Mulder and Scully. I...I suppose I knew that I was missing it."

"Maybe this has been more gradual that it seems," Monica reasoned.

"Only one way to find out for sure," Shannon sighed. "Who's got magnetite?"

"No way!" Skinner exclaimed. "No, no, we'll do other tests. We'll do everything before that. The supersoldier reaction to magnetite is physiological. As long as what makes you one of them is still inside you far as I know you're susceptible to the same weakness." He stared at her seriously. "I know you don't want to put me through that."

"That's true," she whispered, reaching for his hand and squeezing it. "But what else is true since last night is that I don't want to put 'me' through that. I was just kidding." Skinner smiled, relaxing.

"So...what now?" Monica asked. Shannon, Gibson and Skinner shared a glance, unknowing.

xxx 

Mulder was sitting in bed against the wall with an old magazine on his lap, listening to the heavy rain outside and trying not to worry about Scully's extended absence. The worst winds had passed, and though the rain was strong and unrelenting they had been joined by two elderly men with white hair and quiet voices. One, a doctor, had given them both thorough physicals the previous day. Mulder was pretty sure they had both passed even though Scully had been forced to admit her infertility and lie about the fresh scarring on the back of her neck from the injection and the process of the chip's ejection from underneath her skin.

He knew she had been uncomfortable with the whole experience, and she had returned to him withdrawn. As a doctor, she could be picky about the doctors she exposed herself to, and Mulder had earlier been prodded by the same geriatric; he had known instantly the long, wrinkly fingers were not ones Scully would have wanted touching her. Mulder certainly had not been keen on the idea.

Scully appeared in the doorway suddenly, carrying a gas lamp. He looked over and smiled, but his smile faded when he took in her appearance. She was wearing the same jeans and shirt he had seen her put on that morning, but her hair was thick and tousled as though she had been running her hands through it all afternoon, and she looked pale and exhausted.

"Wow," she groaned, walking forward and resting the lamp on the floor against the wall beside Mulder's, before collapsing across the bed on her stomach. She laid her head against his knees and closed her eyes, and Mulder reached down to scratch her scalp as though she was a kitten who had curled up beside him for a snooze.

"What took so long?" he asked.

His morning interview had seemed simple; just a bunch of psych questions and scenarios regarding everyday cases he had to respond to in his professional capacity as a psychologist. Mulder had spent his early professional years inside the minds of violent criminals and the time since sorting through a variety of extreme psychological disturbances. So dealing with other people's ordinary life problems never stressed him out, and he had a lot of personal and professional experiences to draw on.

He liked helping people. He hadn't trained as a psychologist and a profiler and then spent years on the X Files just so all the criminals could get away. He had caught more than most other FBI agents could lay claim to, and he had always felt proud at the end of a case if the perpetrator had been caught, even if the reasons behind his or her acts remained unexplained.

The interview and test, in the end, had only taken a couple of hours. Mulder had called issues as he saw them and listed potential avenues of exploration and treatment, filtering some of his profiling skill into his analysis. He had barely raised a sweat.

Scully, on the other hand, looked like she had sweated all colour out of her face.

"Dana?" he pressed, hoping she had not fallen straight to sleep across his legs. She hummed, opening her eyes and then quickly shutting them as soon as she saw the question there.

"I haven't been grilled like that since medical school," she mumbled. "It was ethics and anatomy and chemistry and physics and every surgical specialty subject under the sun all rolled into one. I don't think I did extremely well, not without references, but it was okay. I aced anatomy and all the surgical questions which is good, but I'm not sure about the rest."

"I've corrupted your ethics, have I?" Mulder teased. He felt her chuckle against him and reached down to run his fingers through her hair. "How long were you doing the written part for?"

"I dunno, four hours maybe," she answered with a yawn. "Lots of diagrams and pictures of things I'm meant to be able to diagnose just by looking at. I wrote all over the paper, all the contra-indications for some things, all the medications and the options the space to write the answer wouldn't let me fit in. I think I demonstrated that I'm a competent physician."

"Dana you're beyond competent," he laughed. "If anything you might have wowed them which will be good. I feel like I got off easy now. So they're expecting you to know 'everything' huh?"

"Well I asked if there would be reference resources down there and they said yes, so that relaxed me. I can't be expected to know 'everything', but I know enough to deal with all the usual problems, especially things like hypothermia and frostbite and sunburn. I think they just wanted to know how much I knew, but Mulder, Jesus my brain is fried. I can barely think about what I'm saying to you." Mulder chuckled. "I think they are happy I'm a surgeon too."

"Did they ask you anything about alien viruses and things like that?"

"No, no, mostly human, some biology besides human but all of this world; a few questions about the geography of Antarctica just to test my general knowledge. I don't know where in Antarctica we'll be based. Probably somewhere near where we were last time."

"South pole," Mulder confirmed with a nod. "I know why they wanted to test you so hard, but I don't know why they needed to. The worst you'll have to deal with is maybe the flu or a heart attack."

"Oh, quarantine," she announced. "They asked me a bunch of questions about quarantine procedures, so if everyone gets sick how to keep myself well for as long as possible, and how to treat biological hazards...though I'm pretty sure everyone who goes there has to get a spotless bill of health first, and it's not exactly an environment that viruses and bacteria generally thrive in. I dunno Mulder, it was just hard. My head hurts, and my shoulders from hunching over the desk, and I just wanna go to sleep. Is it still raining?"

"Yeah, you can't hear it?" Mulder asked, suddenly worried. The rain was loud and because of the wind it was hitting directly against the window above their heads. Scully moaned, eyes shut as she shook her head.

"I can only hear my head pounding. I haven't had any water... Can you look in my pack for those headache pills? I think I'm just going to rehydrate and pass out." Mulder nodded, easing her head off his legs as he climbed out from under her. "Mulder," she continued as he retrieved the pills and a bottle of water and brought them over to her. She managed to sit up and swallow them before collapsing back against the blankets.

"What?" he queried when she didn't finish her thought.

"If we ever meet each other again one day in a parallel universe and I'm at medical school, do me a favour and love me then, and convince me to run far away with you." Mulder chuckled, leaning over to kiss her temple, hoping the headache really was just dehydration and stress, and not anything more serious. He had managed to forget about the possible consequences of the chip's removal, but suddenly the thoughts were back. He wondered if on the test they had asked her any questions about cancer. Cancer in the brain. In HER brain.

"Feel better?" he asked, needing some sort of confirmation before she was asleep that she would wake up. It was silly, really. Scully's cancer had been cured long ago, but that did not mean that without the chip it could never come back, and Mulder had lived through her dying once before. He needed his irrational reassurances to keep him confident that he would not have to do the same again, at least not yet, not while they were still young.

Somehow he knew Scully knew, and she reached up to lace her fingers through his hair.

"Just tired sweetie," she whispered. "Headache pills are just to take the edge off. I haven't worked my brain that hard in so long and I left my glasses here; I didn't have them with me and it was a strain. I'm just tired Fox. I love you. Sleep with me." Mulder nodded, brushing his nose against hers and watching her smile, already half asleep.

Just a tired headache, he told himself as he began to draw back the blankets, helping Scully wriggle around to avoid her having to stand up. He snuggled in beside her as she turned to him and threw a heavy arm over his waist. She really was tired, he realised. Not sick at all. And her eyes were probably shut because they were aching and strained, just like she said. He had not even realised her reading glasses had been left behind, but as he glanced back towards the bag he saw the case sitting on the ground. Duh Mulder, he berated himself, kissing her forehead and hoping any pain was relieved by a decent sleep.

"Dana?"

"Mm," she hummed, inhaling deeply against his chest. "I can hear the rain now."

"Good," he whispered. "I'm sure you did really well today okay? Don't worry about the results. We'll get through."

"What if just one of us does?" she asked innocently.

"Not gonna happen," Mulder assured her, hugging her tightly. "Remember what Shannon said. This is just a formality. Hey, did they ask you about your wrist?"

"Yes, I told them what I did," she hissed. "And why. They know we were separated but I only said we both went home again and met there. I didn't say about the others. I told them it was a long time ago and I was okay now I had you. They were okay about it. Not too tough. The doctor, he could see it was so far from the vein I never really had it in me. Don't think it'll be a problem. See, you are worried."

"Just curious as to why you took so much longer than me," he assured her. Scully huffed.

"Try labelling every part of a male and female body and I mean every part; bones, muscles, organs, arteries, God, and THEN answering all these questions about hormone levels and reading life support machines and EKGs and oh my God the GRAPHS, Mulder. Oh, and 'spot the melanoma' hidden somewhere in six different mole pictures. Not to mention the basic chemistry: identify the elements. And knowing all the names of not just chemicals but the marketed drugs that contain them and what they're used for and what they shouldn't be used for and which ones are better and if you wanted I could probably recount half of it right now. If I start talking about the periodic table of elements or all the different species of fungi in my sleep just ignore me okay? My brain is completely spent but it won't stop working!"

"You poor thing," Mulder laughed, stroking her hair as she settled her head comfortably on her pillow. "Try and get some sleep."

"Keep doing that," she whispered, relaxing under the feeling of his fingers against her scalp and through her hair. "G'night Mulder."

"See you in the morning," he promised as she fell asleep. Mulder's own eyes had been drifting closed as he watched her finally settle, and once he was certain she would not wake he lay down more comfortably on his back beside her. He wondered briefly how their friends were coping without them, but lost consciousness before he could complete the thought, falling quickly asleep, the rain outside confident and unrelenting.

xxx 

"This is an untested theory," Gibson warned. "I don't think it's a good idea."

"I have to go," Shannon insisted as she stood opposite him, her hands on her hips. "Besides, I trust Monica and none of you have come up with anything better. I have things to do."

"At least let one of us come with you," Skinner pleaded. Namely him, he added silently. "If Monica's theory is correct, what if you get hurt and end up stuck somewhere between death and recovery? If Monica's right then if one of us is with you, you might care about us enough to pull through."

"That's completely backwards Walter," Sarah pointed out sadly. "Monica's theory was that Shannon's feelings make her weaker, not in a spiritual sense but in a mortal sense, because one of the aspects of being immortal is possessing an indifference to life and death. Shannon's never been indifferent to other people's lives; that's what makes her different, but for the first time in ages she now cares about her own life and she appreciates the importance of her life to others. And people who care about not leaving other people die ALL the time."

"What if this is permanent?" Monica floated, though she had a feeling her 'theory' had already caused enough trouble. "What if this gradual reconnection continues until you do end up somewhere in between? Not on either true side. What if Skinner's right?"

"To do what I have to do, I can't have any of you around," Shannon insisted. "I would worry about you. It would distract me. I need to pretend that I'm helping just by doing my normal job. I know it sounds callous but I need to be able to tell myself that I don't feel what I do, to push it back underneath for a while, to make sure I'm at full strength. Walter, Sarah needs you and so do the others. You need to get them to safety; that's the most important thing."

"Okay," he sighed. "So you're just going to turn around and wander off into the desert again without any supplies?"

"I don't need them," she assured him. "I haven't been hungry or thirsty and I'm not tired anymore. I think I just went into overdrive and I panicked. Now that I've been able to refocus I'll be okay. Just one more thing. If any of you ever, ever experience what feels like an earthquake, no matter what your job is, even if it's to help 'everyone', abandon your post and go and get your family somewhere safe, all right?"

"An earthquake," John repeated sceptically. Shannon nodded. "All right, whatever you say. Just one more thing for you too: you know we won't walk so fast the next few days, so if something goes wrong and you need to catch up for food and water you should be able to. Just don't try to tough it out if you suddenly realise you're human."

"Thanks, but I'll be okay," Shannon promised, walking over and hugging him firmly. She then wrapped an arm around Monica, who was holding Nicky, and tickled his stomach as he laughed at her. "Bye bye," she sung.

"Will we see you again this time?" Monica asked playfully as Shannon stepped back and squared her shoulders.

"Not anywhere near where you'll be going, but maybe," she conceded, turning around to look at Skinner, Gibson and Sarah. "You might hear about me though," she added. She allowed Sarah to hold onto her tightly and to thank her, and she shook Gibson's outstretched hand as he smirked. "Are you still in?" she asked him. He nodded. "Good. I'll keep that in mind."

She stopped in front of Skinner. He put his hands on her waist and she forced herself not to tear up. She leant her head forward and offered him a gentle, chaste kiss before stepping back. She could not allow herself to feel for the man in front of her even though she 'knew' she loved him. There you go, she told herself. She was back to the old habit: I know I-

"Love you," she whispered, finishing her thought, lying to herself and to Skinner. But the smile he gave her was worth it, and she could see in his own eyes that he had seen her change, and he knew what she had been thinking, and he understood. The barrier was an obvious one to those who knew her. Shannon just wished she could have spent more time with him as Shannon the woman. She thought they could have made it work.

xxx 

Mulder groaned when something soft and fresh-smelling landed gently on his face with a quiet whoosh. He wrapped his hands around it and identified a shirt, presumably tossed onto him by Scully, who he could sense somewhere in the room close to him. He opened his eyes and was met with dim daylight and the sounds of rain outside.

"So much for our Caribbean vacation," he teased, sitting up and staring at Scully in surprise. She was not dressed in the denim and cotton ensemble he had seen her in every day since he had been reunited with her. She was wearing a black pantsuit and cream blouse. It looked new and it fit her almost perfectly; Mulder noticed the cuffs at her wrists and ankles were slightly too long. His eyes focussed on her shoes, clad in black high heels, and the similarly coloured and shined pair of flatter, larger shoes just beside her. For him.

"Don't crush that now," she urged, and Mulder stared down at the shirt in his hands. It was a business shirt. He looked at her curiously, needing no words. "They were hanging up just outside the bathroom for us. I presume from the attire it means we're going into some sort of business meeting we should look neat for."

Mulder changed quickly, having showered not long before Scully had returned from her exams the night before. He took a minute to watch her sitting on the bed and brushing her damp hair, and he saw her looking back at him out of the corner of her eye.

"How are you this morning?" he asked hopefully.

"Good," she replied with a tight smile. "I had a hot shower. I feel a lot better but I'm not up for doing calculus in my head yet. I'm a bit nervous about this, Mulder."

"They wouldn't throw us back in the desert in expensive suits," he promised, sliding his black jacket over the white shirt and black slacks. She looked over at him and smiled appreciatively. "Haven't seen me all dressed up in a while, eh?" he teased.

"A while?" she laughed. "Mulder, try years. Even I feel more formal than I'm used to. I'd forgotten what a bitch shoes like this can be. My feet aren't in the best shape from all the walking and exposure to the sand and sun anyway. They really hate me now."

"I'm sure we can find a way to temporarily ease the pain when you're free to take them off again," he chuckled. "So where are we going now that we're ready? Was there a note?"

"No, and-" Scully was cut off by a knock on their bedroom door. Mulder thought they had fallen asleep with it open, but they usually slept with it shut, and Scully must have pulled it closed upon returning from her shower. She strode to answer it, her heels tapping loudly on the cement floor. The white-haired doctor stood there and smiled at her kindly as she revealed his presence to Mulder. Mulder stood behind Scully but not too close; she was in charge and she knew how to speak doctor-to-doctor if necessary. She was also not afraid, and he was just a little bit. He felt like he had only just woken up, and he still wasn't thinking clearly.

"Ah good morning," the doctor, who had kept himself nameless, announced. "Nice to see you both dressed. I need you both to accompany me to the clinic before we go."

"Go?" Scully asked. "You're leaving?"

"So are you, Dana. Pack up your sentimental things. You can leave the rest behind. You won't need it anymore."

"But we can take our photos?" Mulder pressed hopefully. The man nodded, offering Mulder a sad sort of smile.

"Of course," he replied. He stood in the door and watched Scully separate a small daypack from her larger backpack and fill it with their photos of each other and their families they had recovered in Virginia and DC, and Mulder reverently also packed Scully's journal and her Bible that he had kept with him always. Scully also packed her more recent journals, not prepared to leave any of her studies or dreams behind.

Once they had double-checked they had all their treasures they followed the man to the clinic and complied when they were asked to take a seat on separate examination beds. Their bag was on the floor between them and Mulder glanced at Scully when he saw her swinging her legs over the edge as innocently as a girl. He could tell just by that action she was as nervous as him. She never fidgeted when she was in control.

"So I take it we passed?" Mulder asked.

"Yes, you'll make wonderful, crucial additions to our team," the doctor promised. "But to get you there we need to use an unorthodox method of transport. Please lie back." They hesitated. "Lie back. I won't hurt you." He stared at Scully, aware she would be the one to convince Mulder that all was well. With a deep breath, she lay back on the bed and scooted up until her head was on the flat pillow. Mulder mimicked her and watched. The doctor had his back to them. "Fox, you told me the other day you suffer from motion sickness?"

"Yes," he confirmed warily.

"Well I'm afraid one of the drawbacks of the technology to get you to Antarctica has a nasty side effect of turning even the strongest of seamen into quivering messes so I'm going to give you both something-"

"I really don't think that's necessary," Scully insisted. "I don't get motion sick."

"My dear," he replied calmly, turning back to them to reveal two patches. They looked like normal motion sickness patches to her, but she could not be sure what they were. He had not elaborated. "Dana, I wouldn't want you to have a seizure, and neither does Fox. Don't worry, when you wake up you'll be there, and you'll have an opportunity to learn what this is in your own right, but just trust me, for now. We do not have the time to explain."

"Okay," she conceded. Mulder's eyes widened. Was she out of her mind? Scully should never have given in so easily. What did she know that he didn't? Or was she still so worn out from the previous day that she was more open to suggestion? He watched as the doctor put the small patch over the pulse point at the right of her neck. Scully remained awake and she turned her head to offer Mulder a sweet smile. "It's fine," she promised. "I'm not...sleepy-"

Mulder mouth opened to protest at the fact his partner had just passed out when his voice was stopped by the tapping of the patch onto his neck. He hadn't even been aware of the doctor moving towards him, too wrapped up in making sure Scully had been okay. Deep sleep overcame him quickly, and the last thing he saw before his eyes closed was the doctor reaching confidently for Scully's hand.


	10. Chapter 10

Ten

Scully glanced instinctively at her wrist for the millionth time since arriving at Antarctica. She no longer had a watch. Nobody kept time. There was not much point. It was either dark all day outside or light all day outside, and they stayed inside for much of the time. Time inside was up to their own individual body clocks and a lot of people chose to sleep while others worked or played. There were no rules.

Still, she missed the security of having a watch on her wrist. Even when she had been underground after the invasion she had been in the possession of clocks and calendars. She had been alone underground for five weeks but she never lost track of more than one or two days. Those days were long behind her.

The only real measurement Scully had of how long they had been there was based upon the length of her hair. When she had been knocked out at the processing centre her thick, orange hair had touched her shoulders. It had since grown to halfway down her upper arm.

To Scully that equated to approximately six months of time, but it was not reliable. She no longer trusted her body, which was confused by the climate and the inability to tell day from night. Her menstrual cycle was a lost cause, though she was comforted by the fact the only two other women in the complex had confessed they had the same problem.

She tapped her fingernails against the workbench she was leaning over and decided not to continue with her research. She felt tired. Her day was nearly over and she wanted to find Mulder and discover what he had been doing all day. They kept the same time, thankfully. For a man who had rarely slept during their working partnership he had certainly improved over the years since. Sleep had sometimes been a struggle in Virginia but his sleeplessness then had more to do with boredom than his sister or his nightmares. She had woken up so many nights to find him reading beside her, or downstairs in his office looking over apparent X Files.

In Antarctica, however, when they thought it was night they slept. They had made a promise not to lose touch in the expansive complex so made an effort to find one another before going to bed, so that they still slept and woke together. Scully thought that was important for their sanity and to help with the adjustment of living in such a strange place, and luckily Mulder had agreed. She was tired, so as part of their routine she should find him.

Luckily she knew what his schedule for the day had been like. They had chatted over a breakfast of fresh fruit and bread. Scully's plans had involved her research; she had no appointments scheduled with the other residents. Mulder had been 'open to session' all day, which generally meant he had been bludging in his office. Scully had been at the complex long enough to know how those days ended, and they ended there often.

Still, she was never quite sure what she would find.

She packed up her things and made sure the many doors that led to storage rooms around her office and the research lab in which she had spent her day were locked tightly. She checked the examination rooms on the lower floor to make sure it was clean for the next day. She walked around the operating theatres looking for anomalies that could indicate a breach of her secure premises. The exam rooms and theatres on the lower floor were easier to get into but she kept nothing confidential there. Her patients could get in and see her though; that was the main priority. Upon inspection she found there was nothing to cause her displeasure and the whole space was neat and very clean.

Scully smiled as she returned upstairs to her office and hung her white coat up in the rack by the door before leaving. As she walked out of the doors that sealed her 'wing' of Tower One of the complex off from everyone else, she placed her hand on the blank side of the door. It slid shut so completely it was hard to distinguish the door from the wall, but for the tiny green-red light that was there purely for her benefit. The scanner read her palm and she no longer flinched at the tiny pinprick against the tip of her fifth finger.

She worked at the largest and most secure part of the complex in the primary tower. It took a lot to get in and out, and Scully was patient as her eyes were then scanned.

"Sealing up now," she stated, aware her voice was being analysed in addition to her iris, her palm print and her blood. Satisfied, Scully heard locks click on the doors as though a jail had gone into lock down, and her hand tingled in a sign that she was free to go.

Scully's flat shoes squeaked softly on the shiny, cream floors. She took the stairs. Escalators and elevators were available in the centre of the cylindrical towers, but she liked the stairs. They kept her fit and she liked to keep some energy in a day that was mostly spent sitting.

There were no directions on any of the walls and Scully knew her way by practice and instinct. She and Mulder had been blessed with very helpful guides upon their arrival. It had taken Scully a long time to be able to get from her room in Tower Two to her offices, and then from her offices to anywhere else without any help. Mulder had caught on only slightly quicker; there was not much a photographic memory could do when every door looked the same.

Mulder had offices on the level below the level her patients could access at Tower One. All the medical offices were in the one section, and when Scully and Mulder had arrived the entire top three floors of the first tower had been abandoned. Not even the nurse in residence had bothered to open it up. Scully hadn't minded. She had gotten everything fresh. And boy, what she had gotten, she thought with an overwhelmed sigh.

Scully unlocked and entered Mulder's office without having to pass any special clearance points. She knew her fingerprints were scanned against the door handle and the complex knew that she and Mulder shared each other's space. He had even been granted emergency access to areas like her office, and if she accompanied him and scanned herself in he could go anywhere on her floor. He was the only person she would ever consider sharing her space with. There were secrets in those rooms that he was meant to know.

Mulder's office looked like a typical psychologist's office with a desk, plants and comfortable chairs arranged on a soft carpet. A row of books lined a shelf behind a generous, black chair which Mulder sat in daily. His large, wooden desk was not the mess she had come to expect from working on the X Files with him. He did not take notes because he remembered what people told him. At most, he would scribble a few sentences down in his diary against the appointments.

Scully approached the black book on the desk and flipped it open. There were no actual dates or times. Blank pages had been broken up into sections by horizontal pencil lines and Scully automatically looked to the most recent. Sometimes Mulder left her notes if he was going to be with the guys at the end of the day, and even though she thought she knew where she was it was best to check first. If she was wrong, she could spend hours looking for him.

Or what seemed like hours, she corrected. It was hard to stop thinking in terms of time. Mostly Scully let herself think about hours and days and months. It just made living easier, and she knew Mulder did it too, otherwise he would not bother dividing the pages of his diary. It was helpful to them, but Scully had to wonder whether it would become less important as time continued to pass.

After all, she would have to cut her hair eventually, and then what would she do? Mulder had drawn a doodle on the bottom corner of the most recent division, and Scully smiled at the picture of a stick figure holding a baseball bat. She suddenly knew exactly where he was.

Her shoes again squeaked as she left his office, making sure the door locked behind her. The hallway was circular just like all the rooms, and elevators and escalators in the centre remained still; only operating when people requested their use. They were fast and silent, but Scully still preferred the stairs. She did not like the weightless feeling of zooming up and down at such fast speeds.

She knew the door she was searching for but Mulder always made it obvious. Stuck to the wall just outside it was a piece of paper with a note scribbled in his familiar handwriting, the words formed by black ink and all in capitals.

'AFTERNOON OPEN SESSION: BALLROOM DANCING'

The 'open sessions' had been Scully's idea. She had thought it would be a good idea if he had group meetings, where people could socialise with one another. They all saw each other so rarely, and all were busy on various projects, but mostly everyone 'existed' in the complex. It was not living. Scully was happy to be doing her part and she did feel as though she was living, but if she had been there alone it would have been harder.

Mulder kept her grounded, and that thought sounded strange to her because she had always believed she kept him grounded, and she supposed she still did. But she panicked too, she woke up in cold sweats more often than him, and when she gave into those weaknesses that plagued her thoughts on darker days he made her feel alive. He kept it real.

The door was unlocked and Scully entered. She had never expected there to be actual ballroom dancing and was used to Mulder's cheeky code. Though she was surprised to see, not a baseball field stretched out before her, but a basketball court. She grinned.

The room had become Mulder's escape. Scully had not been able to figure out how he had done it. The first time they had taken the tour around their offices it had been introduced as Mulder's 'open' space. Inside it had been plain and unfurnished and very, very cream. Nothing in the complex was white, which was something Scully had expected. To her white spoke of sterility and detachment, but the floors and walls were cream and in many places decorated with art. Their private quarters were carpeted just as their consultation offices, and though they survived underneath the surface of the icesheet in a structure built by aliens, nothing was white and everything was homey and comfortable.

As though they had been looking through Architectural Digest for ideas, she thought.

But none of that explained why, upon standing in the empty, open room for the first time it had transformed into their bedroom in Virginia. One second she had been standing beside Mulder and staring at all the cream, and then she had been in her bedroom. The bed had been turned down, ready for them, the lamp was on. Mulder had grinned, walked over and jumped onto the bed as though it had been 'real'. Scully had gasped, expecting him to fall straight through whatever type of joint hallucination they were both experiencing. But he hadn't fallen, the bed had creaked a little under his weight and he had bounced on the mattress, resting back on the pillow and inhaling deeply.

'I like this room,' he had declared, patting the bed. 'Come on Scully, live a little.'

Scully had been beyond stunned. Mulder had been 'going with the flow', as he put it, but later on when they were discussing it he confessed his ignorance as to how or why the room had become what he wanted, rather than what anybody else wanted. He had not been aware of consciously wishing to see the room, but he had told her the image had been in his mind. She knew whenever one of them had been having difficulties sleeping side by side in the sand for all those months the other had often whispered a little domestic fantasy about how comfortable their bed was; the picture had helped them pretend that was where they were, and sleep had sometimes come easier.

"DOCTOR SCULLY!"

Scully realised she had been leaning against the open doorway with a gentle smile on her face and she allowed her smile to widen to a grin when Eddie called to her. She stepped into the room and the door slid shut behind her, and she crossed her arms, looking around. She had seen the room become a lot of things, but Mulder liked to unwind with a game of baseball or basketball at the end of a boring day. She had expected the baseball because of his drawing, but she could plainly see that he had chosen the alternative. Sometimes on basketball days she would step into an arena as big as Madison Square Garden, but she was currently standing in what appeared to be any high school or gym basketball court.

"Eddie, you back for therapy again?" she called out in jest. She kicked off her shoes before she stepped onto the court. She knew from experience they made a horrible creaking noise that gave her the shivers. Eddie was already walking towards her, his hand outstretched for a high five. She had not seen her nurse all day. He was nothing like she had pictured. She was only one of four Americans on the base, and they were the only ones in the room with her.

Eddie was a tall, muscular African American from Boston with wise, dark brown eyes that were flecked with an amazing amber colour Scully always found hypnotic. His smile was wide and friendly and though she stood barely taller than his hip he never made her feel like she was looking up at him. He was also an extremely competent and compassionate nurse, and he liked her and respected her as a doctor. So overall, she was happy.

He held his palm low for her to hit and he grinned, doing a bit of a jig and pulling her further onto the court.

"Mulder told us you'd make it, but we were startin' to think you lost track of time, girl."

"I did not!" she scoffed playfully, grinning over at Mulder who was leaning against the back wall with a wide grin on his face. Scully felt herself grinning back. It felt like forever since she had seen him, even though it had just been that morning. The absence of real time always made the time seen infinite.

"So are you gonna join us?" Eddie asked hopefully.

"I don't think I need any therapy right now," she taunted, cocking her head to the side and pretending to think.

"Got some therapy of your own last night, did ya?" he teased. She laughed, shaking her head even though his statement was partly true. "Ah!" Eddie exclaimed, reaching out with his large hands and brushing a thumb over her jaw. "Made the little doctor blush." Scully smiled but took a careful step back. She liked Eddie, but he did tend to get into her space sometimes. The good thing was he knew about his problem and he responded to her silent messages without taking offence or retaliating in any way. He just grinned at her and removed his hand, gesturing to where Mulder had been joined by the only other American at the complex.

Michael also stood nearly a head above Mulder, but he was leaner than Eddie. Eddie wore his afro proudly, in a mop of black frizzy hair, but Michael shaved his head. At least Scully assumed he shaved it. He surely was too young to be bald. They were both younger than Mulder and Scully. Eddie said he was about thirty-four and Michael claimed to be twenty-five. Scully knew she and Mulder had to seem ancient to them; both in the vicinity of their early forties. Not that Mulder acted like his last birthday had been his forty-third.

"Evenin' Dana," Michael greeted in his delightfully southern accent when she looked his way and smiled. She liked that they were on similar clocks, though Eddie and Michael went to bed later and slept later. They were always free for a game with Mulder and Eddie was always on time for her work schedule. Michael worked as a cleaner so could keep whatever hours he wanted. Neither of them had wives or partners at the complex, so they never had anybody coming by to drag them to bed. Not like Mulder, she realised. She often walked in on their down time.

Anybody was free to come, they were called 'open' sessions for a reason, but most of the time it was Mulder and his buddies. Scully did not mind. She hadn't made friends outside their little group. To the residents, she was 'the doctor', the woman who worked in the restricted area, the woman who must have inside information about the complex, and the redhead with those icy eyes they had brought in with her partner at the last minute just to 'keep an eye on them', on their health, on their progress, or whatever.

Scully had heard all the rumours and had chosen to ignore them. After all, working with Mulder on the X Files had taught her a lot about standing up for herself. She had always been headstrong and stubborn and confident in her academic abilities, but until she had worked with Mulder she had never experienced the sort of demoralising teasing that he had lived with for most of his life. She had been a navy brat and moved around a lot, sure, but that had insulated her from a lot of negative energy. She had never really ventured past 'that new smart girl' to 'that nerd'.

Mulder had been 'Spooky' and she had become 'Mrs Spooky', or the 'Ice Queen', and she had been proud of those names because they were a reflection of everybody's assumptions that firstly, she and Mulder were close and that they trusted one another with their lives, and secondly that she could handle the pressure. Mulder had tried to apologise to her one day after they had overheard something particularly nasty about her from a passing agent having a bad day, but she had explained to him her theory and it had seemed to settle him. It would have been unfair for him to bear the brunt of the jokes. She hadn't minded sharing.

"Uh, hellooo," Eddie drawled, waving his large hand through her line of vision and interrupting her thoughts. She jerked back to full alert and looked over at him, her blue eyes wide. "You still with us? Long day."

"The longest," she groaned, walking up to Mulder. Michael was spinning a basketball on his long, bony, brown finger and Scully leaned into Mulder's side as he wrapped an arm low around her hips. Against Michael and Eddie, he never seemed so tall. "So what are you doing? I thought I would be walking in on a proper game. I'm disappointed."

"These two couldn't decide who wanted to lose first," Mulder teased, nodding his head in the direction of their friends. "Do you feel like playing or are you tired?" he asked gently, squeezing her hip and causing a brief shiver to flit up her spine.

"You know I don't like playing basketball with you all," she groaned. "I'm barely over five feet tall. You're all giants."

"We'll let you make a shot," Michael promised. "Come on, Mulder's been all moping about losin' to US since we got here. Apparently he really had his heart set on baseball today."

"Yeah, what happened?" she asked. "I saw the drawing you left in your office."

"I dunno," he hummed. "Guess I changed my mind, or maybe it's been raining on the field or its being mowed or something. Out for maintenance, you know?" Scully laughed softly. "Come on, let's shoot a few hoops. If you like I'll make the LA Lakers over here sit out while we warm up."

"Hey man, don't call me names," Eddie chuckled. "I aint no LA Laker. Please."

"I didn't go up to get changed first because I thought you were playing baseball," she explained, aware the slacks and long-sleeved sweater she was wearing was unsuitable for the court, but Mulder was a step ahead and pointed to the bleachers and the pile of clothes sitting beside his bat and glove. Scully approached straight away. It was an unspoken agreement that Mulder kept an eye on Eddie and Michael to make sure they didn't watch her as she changed, for Mulder regularly went over to their quarters and got her clothes.

Once she was dressed as they all were, in shorts, a t-shirt and sports shoes, she returned, tucking her long hair behind her ears and catching the ball as Mulder threw it to her.

"One on one?" she challenged. Mulder grinned mischievously, nodding. "All right, sit down boys," she ordered the others. "You're about to see the doctor get her butt kicked. Don't tell."

xxx 

"Augh, I am so full," Mulder groaned as he lay back on their expansive bed that 'night'.

The mess hall consisted of round-the-clock availability of all sorts of fresh food, cultivated and processed in Tower Three. As far as Scully knew, all the seeds or the genetic blueprints of those seeds had been provided by the aliens and the complex itself provided variable, controlled temperatures at different levels to allow a wide variety of fruits, vegetables and grains to grow. They didn't just grow either. Untainted by pests, pesticides or unseasonable weather, their fresh food flourished.

They had fish available, although it had to be requested because the fish whose flesh they wished to consume had to be killed on demand. It sounded horrible but whenever Scully wanted fish she didn't hesitate. An entire level of Tower Three was an aquarium. The carbohydrates were bread or rice, and every now and then the cooks went to the effort to make pizza or pasta. There were other things there Scully had missed. Michael had a habit of leaving chocolate mints in the delivery space outside their quarters. They had toiletries, shampoo and deodorants; they had been provided with clothes and furniture.

They even had red meat, which after long periods without Scully always craved. Thankfully the provision of such meat did not require the slaughter of any cows housed underground at the South Pole. Instead the meat was 'grown' by way of genetic engineering. Scully had hesitated only the first time; it was the best damn beef she had ever had, and she and Mulder had steak regularly. The chicken was also very popular.

They in fact ate an extremely healthy diet, and Scully knew that everybody else who lived in the complex also ate well and as a result were all in good health. That made her job a lot easier. There was no alcohol in the complex, no tobacco, and no deep fryer. Residents could order something at the mess hall and have it prepared there by the chef to eat in or take back to their quarters, or they could go to the kitchen and choose their own supplies to cook in their quarters privately.

Most days people filtered in and out of the mess hall and the chef was always busy, but Scully enjoyed going 'grocery shopping' and picking her own food. She could toss up a salad at home and she and Mulder could take it to their offices for lunches. The mess hall was right at the bottom of Tower Two and they worked at the very top of Tower One, so to have to leave the office for lunch took a long time. Shopping and cooking helped them both feel normal, too, and they only ate at the mess hall a couple of times a week.

Just as they had that night. It HAD been pizza night, and word had spread quickly. Mulder had polished off an entire thin-crust pizza loaded with fresh toppings and Scully had only managed half of hers. She was not surprised he felt full. His stomach looked huge as he lay on the bed with his hands over his tired eyes. Their quarters were on the top floor of Tower Two, and they had taken the escalator up. The stairs would have left them both with indigestion and the elevator's speed probably would have caused her to vomit. She still felt sick from overeating, and joined Mulder on the bed. He turned his head until his forehead touched her shoulder and sighed.

"So how was your day?" he mumbled. She was still wearing her t-shirt but they had gone upstairs after basketball to change for dinner and they had both put jeans on instead of their sweaty running shorts. She hummed, fingering the denim over her hipbone.

"Interesting," she answered honestly. It was never uninteresting, that was for sure. "I spent most of the day looking over the science of the antidotes again."

"Do you think you would use them?"

"If I was out of options, yes," she answered cautiously. 'The antidotes' was a term she had given what was contained in one of her offices' storage rooms. Mulder had seen the drawers, stacked floor to ceiling and filled with millions of vials of cultures and liquids. Upon their arrival, they had both been told that contained in that room was all of the drugs necessary to treat any illness which should occur, but they were only to be handled expertly and manuals had been provided for Scully. She still did not know why.

The aliens had given her their technology. She had almost had something similar given to her once by a man who later betrayed her, who had led her around on nothing but hope and a sliver of trust. In the end, all he had given her was a blank disc. Yet in Antarctica she had been given volumes of science that was nothing like the science she had learned, and yet so much was similar. She found that upon closer inspection she did understand it in parts.

She still did not know why she had it though. Why did she have the cure for cancer sitting in her storage room? Was it really the cure for cancer? Was there really a cure for Alzheimer's and Muscular Dystrophy and Parkinson's? Was there really a vaccine for SIDS, for HIV? Everything pointed towards the fact that what was in her storage room was real, and that it would work, but she had no way to test it, and nobody to ask for more information.

And if the aliens cared so much about the human race, why keep those cures hidden until most of humanity had been wiped out? That fact always left her feeling suspicious about the so-called cures. Were they antidotes, or just more false hope?

"I wish I could ask them," she whispered. "Why this was given to us. I could spend years testing their technology with human equipments, but I don't think it will ever be enough, and if one day you have a heart attack, I am going to have to fill a syringe with the antidote and put it straight into your heart. I don't know how I can do that, not knowing whether it would cause you more pain."

"Do you believe in it?" he asked seriously.

"Yes," she replied. "I am living in an underground silo that has no electrical wiring and yet somehow stays heated and ventilated and lit, and the lights go off when we decide to sleep. How could I not believe that the cure for cancer sits upstairs when I had the cure given to me ten years ago? Surely it exists still, but in a more refined form."

"Dana, have you done a complete inventory of what's in that room?" Mulder asked, rolling properly onto his side and staring across at her face. She nodded.

"I know what's there. I haven't completed an examination of the science behind each."

"Is there an antidote for infertility?" he asked. She winced, biting her bottom lip. She had been waiting for the question for a long time, unwilling to bring it up on her own because of the answer.

"Not mine," she admitted in a shamed whisper. "Mulder there's an antidote for health problems which lead to infertility, like cystic ovarian syndrome and endometriosis and even STDs, but there is nothing that can be done for a barren womb. I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault," he assured her, shaking his head firmly and fighting against the tears that built in his eyes when he heard the guilt in her voice. "I just had been thinking."

"I know," she assured him. "I did check. I had been thinking too." She reached for his hand and squeezed tightly, managing an emotional smile. "I'm sorry Fox," she repeated.

"Shh," he hushed, leaning his head down and resting it against her breast as her other hand threaded through his hair and held him against her. "Guess we'll have to survive with the fish," he mumbled after taking a few deep breaths with her. Scully smiled, glancing out of the open bedroom door into their living room. She could see Mulder's pride and joy spanning the length of one whole wall. Scully had to admit she was pretty proud of it as well.

Their own tropical aquarium was soothing and beautiful and teeming with life. It was set deep into the wall and they hadn't even put it there; it had always been in their home and it had always been filled. As far as they knew, none of the fish had ever died. When they took days away from their office they were happy to sit on their couch with books or work they had brought home. The fish relaxed them. Scully had never had trouble adjusting and the tank was no bother; it cleaned itself and there was no audible filtering system. She did not know how it worked or sustained itself but it did.

"You know what else I did today?" she asked, raking her fingers soothingly through his hair as his head continued to rest on her chest.

"What?" he asked, the hum of his voice against her soft breast relaxing. She shut her eyes.

"I had another look through the genetic database. You know for a race so intent on stripping half the world's resources away, they went to an awful lot of trouble to catalogue every living thing. There's not just the human genome there, there's everything. Every animal, every plant, small micro-organisms to complex beings, mammalian, reptilian, you name it."

"Is that because they created us or because they were studying us?" Mulder asked.

"I'm not sure," she replied honestly. "On the one hand, evolution has been proven by fossils, but if we are a product of their creation it still could have been done over those hundreds of millions of years. Presumably as they advanced their own creationist technologies the earth would have advanced, and then when they realised they had achieved an equilibrium they could have pulled away."

"That is a pretty cool theory comin' from a good Catholic girl," Mulder teased, holding her hand tightly and brushing his thumb over the tops of her fingers. He raised his head from her chest and rested his chin on her sternum, watching her. She was teasing him with a smug smirk and his eyes flickered to the gold crucifix around her neck, a present from her mother when she had been a girl. That and a few photos were all she had left of the woman who had given her life and raised her, who had always believed in her and in him; Mulder felt blessed to have known Maggie Scully. The woman had always exuded love for her family. It was something that awed him because it was something he could not remember in his own house, and he had always wanted more. Only Maggie had ever dared bridge the gap to give it to him.

"I have to admit it's a possibility," Scully mumbled, unaware of Mulder's grief-laden nostalgia for her mother. "Mulder I saw our science on alien spacecraft years ago. I think I've seen too much to deny that our science may have come from another realm. That being said, I believe that our souls are still entwined with life in a way no science can explain. No human or alien science can explain personality, love, or the way we form relationships or use our brain to expand our own knowledge. That will to achieve is something that has to come from something else. I still believe that."

"Do you believe there is a soul in all things?" he asked curiously.

"Yes," Scully replied definitely. "To a certain extent. I think in complex organisms very much so, but I'm not about to start believing that you could be reincarnated into an ant. I think you're too complex for that, Mulder." He chuckled. "Who knows, maybe the soul is something that is produced as a result of the science of our creation, but it is not something that is ruled by that science. Once it exists, it takes its own form. And maybe that's where your theory comes in about souls choosing their bodies, their lives. Who knows Mulder, maybe that is true? All I know for sure is that our science exists to us in our lives. Everything else is changed for me."

Mulder hummed thoughtfully. For once, they were on the same page. They had been since arriving. Both their beliefs and everything they had thought about the world and the aliens had been put aside upon entering the complex and experiencing first-hand what had been created for them. The unknowns were the same, the information available was the same, and the possibilities were the same. For once, neither knew which possibility they favoured, which one they wanted to prove. They were not at opposing ends of the spectrum; they were stuck in the middle. All they could do was investigate.

"Are you still writing all your notes?" he asked. She nodded.

"I've already filled up two notebooks." As far as Scully was aware, she and Mulder were the only ones who used paper. There were computers that networked but neither had felt comfortable using the touch-screens and turning their information over to some sort of online storage database. Stationery was easy to come by and they had shelves of empty books waiting to be filled with Scully's analysis.

"Do you think it's weird that everyone else has pretty...secondary roles here?"

"Secondary how?" she asked curiously. Mulder shifted himself away from her and slid up the bed so they were eye to eye and propped himself up on his elbow, wiggling to get comfortable on the thick, supportive mattress.

"Well maybe that's the wrong term. A lot of them are agricultural and work on preserving the farm and the aquarium and you've got the genetic engineers working as well, but all of that is food-related. Everything here seems to be concerned with preservation. Then you've got that group of four who are the main mediators, the lawyers or whatever, who don't have any real purpose other than to sit and wait for a signal. And then there's the chef and some cleaners and then...there's us. This 'medical' team. You, me and Eddie. Nobody here is sick, Scully."

"I did notice," she mumbled, frowning in deep thought. "It doesn't mean there shouldn't be a doctor here, or a psychologist. Those are skills that have been needed throughout time in all situations and this is nothing if not extreme. But um...nobody seems to 'want' to socialise with us Mulder. We're as rejected by the majority here as we were in the FBI. I think they think we're spies, like if they come to me with a problem I'm going to pass it on. Besides checking everyone over when I got here, there have been no problems."

"I sometimes get the feeling," he began, trailing off for a few seconds to gather his thoughts. He trailed a finger along her shoulder as he spoke, unsure of whether or not he wanted to say what he was about to, uncertain about how it was going to sound. "Sometimes I feel like it's all here for us," he mumbled. "But that doesn't make sense because nobody could know we would survive, and if Shannon hadn't had Gibson with her that day she would never have had to try to get us into the only other alternative, but doesn't it feel 'right' somehow that it 'is' us here? I mean with everything we worked on, with what we know...And you've been handed all of this amazing data, and it feels like it was 'meant' to happen this way."

"I know how you feel," Scully hissed, her heart beating painfully in her chest as she watched him struggle to admit something which from anyone else would have sounded egotistical, and yet Mulder made it sound like it was simply a humble fact. "I don't know what to do with this science," she continued. "I want to share it with everyone but I'm bound by my ethics. I can't talk about it to anyone here but you and I know that binds you as well... Mostly I just want to know what it's for, what I'm meant to do with it. Is it to help save us, or is it to help write their history books?"

Mulder shrugged, unable to answer. He wanted to believe it was to save them, to somehow save their friends. He wanted to believe they possessed a way to restore the earth; to resurrect all that had been lost. He just was not sure he believed in fairytales.

"Fox," Scully whispered seriously, reaching for his face and settling her fingers against the five o'clock shadow on his jaw. "Sometimes I feel like the presence of God is in this place."

Mulder did not know what to say. He felt it too. A spirit in the way the complex operated, a force enclosing them, preserving them, but for what and for whom? A selfish part of Mulder did not care about those answers because Scully was alive and with him and safe, but the rest of him wanted answers. The only problem was, God had a historically annoying habit of not talking back and no aliens were there to answer their questions.

Scully held the creation of the planet in her hands. It was locked in her office. She studied it daily. How could she not feel the presence of God in those words, in the symbols? It was as though everything combined had led them there, and yet it was as though their arrival had been pre-arranged. Who could do that but a God? The information they possessed equalled power, and they were awed and alone. Mulder stared down at Scully as tears filled her eyes.

"Mulder, it scares me," she admitted. He shut his eyes and nodded. He too was afraid.


	11. Chapter 11

Eleven

Scully sat up in bed several nights later as their lights switched on and a fierce alarm sounded. The whirring was so high pitched it reminded her of the noise of the invasion and she reached for Mulder as he too sat up, terrified. The sound did not dissipate as it had that night, but it was louder and it seemed to filter in from all boundaries of their room. It was not the sound of a human alarm, there was no beeping or whirring up and down an octave, and there was no siren. It was a constant squeal and it was deafening.

She dragged herself out of bed in her flannel pyjamas and hurried through their living room and past their small kitchen to the front door. She held her hand out to open it and looked worriedly into the hallway beyond their quarters. They were on the very top floor of the second tower which housed all the residents, and she could stand in the hallway and peer down to see people moving. Mulder came up behind her and they both went to the edge of the hallway where a railing prevented their fall. The alarm somehow seemed quieter outside their room.

"Dana!" Eddie shouted up suddenly. He sounded a long way down. "You better get to Tower One. We've got a code blue!"

"What does that mean here?" Mulder asked as Scully headed for the stairs. Mulder shut and locked their door and then caught up, both of them in long-sleeved, dark blue flannel pyjamas which had been provided for them upon their arrival.

"It means somebody's dying," she answered simply over her shoulder as they scuttled down to the nearest cross-ramp that would take her to the adjoining tower. The ramps were on every second floor and were angled down a floor, so to cross they either ended up a floor lower or a floor higher than the level on which they started. As such, they were not bridges. Mulder believed the design had some structural significance, creating a zigzag pattern of support beams between the three towers. Scully could accept that. They were underground amidst crushing, powerful ice and needed all the structural support they could get.

There was a ramp right at the end of the floor just below theirs which would take them to the floor below the operating theatre and examination rooms. The ramps were enclosed and protected from the white-blue ice outside, but the enclosure was see-through and they could see what they would face should the structure ever collapse as Mulder had witnessed in the past. 'Claustrophobics beware,' he had teased on their tour, 'this is not the place for you'.

Once they were in the first tower Scully immediately spotted one of the elevators on its way up. A group of residents were on the escalator, climbing as it climbed to hasten their ascension. Scully turned to the nearby staircase that wound around the inside of the hallways and took the stairs one at a time, as quickly as she could. Mulder could have easily taken three at a time with his longer legs but purposefully trailed behind. He was not the doctor on call. He was just a helper. If somebody really was dying, she would need more help than one nurse could provide.

The doors to what Scully termed 'the hospital' were already open. Really it was simply her operating theatre, with three separate bays. It was set up like an emergency room, again from a magazine or television show. Sometimes Mulder questioned the reality of where they were and whether it was really happening or all just in their minds. The fantasy could be quaint at times and it was unsettling. But there was nothing quaint about the massive blood loss he witnessed when he looked at the floor and the operating tables. One patient was already occupying the closest table, and another was being lifted by Eddie and another man from Malaysia that Scully only knew as Ray.

Mulder watched her race for her scrubs and he heard her start barking orders as Eddie, asking what the hell had happened and what the symptoms were and what their conditions were like. Eddie hooked both patients up to heart and blood pressure monitors. As Scully strapped a mask over her face Mulder knew she was in emergency medicine mode, and that she would not register the significance of the bodies in front of them, but he could not help noticing.

On the two operating tables lay the only other women who lived at the complex.

Scully went to the patient who looked closest to death first. The woman was Caucasian, French, and her name was Suzanne. She was a mediator. Her olive skin was grey and her lips were blue. She was wearing casual clothes; presumably she had been awake in her own 'day time' when it happened. Whatever happened, Mulder thought curiously. Her skirt and legs were streaked with blood; it was pooling on the table and dripping off the edges onto the ground. He knew that pale look about her skin. She had lost a LOT of blood. Mulder watched Eddie hack her skirt away and only then did he glance at Mulder and then to the door just beside him.

"Keep everyone out," he ordered. "Shut the curtains." Mulder nodded, pulling the curtain to shield Suzanne from the door and then making sure the door was closed firmly. He used his authority in the system on the level to lock the door.

The only thing Mulder really understood in what Scully was saying was that Suzanne was haemorrhaging, critical internal bleeding in the abdomen, and was there enough blood in storage?

"We have blood, but will it go to waste here?" Eddie asked. It was not a question Scully was used to hearing and her back tensed as she glared up at him. Still, even Mulder could see the woman was continuing to lose blood and her pulse. They would never stop the bleeding without cutting her open, but her pulse was erratic and her blood pressure falling. Though the operating theatre was well equipped, Scully had told him it was not trauma equipped.

Suddenly the second woman hit the flat-line first and alarms on the EKG began ringing. Scully had abandoned the second woman, an Albanian lawyer whose name Mulder couldn't remember, in favour of Suzanne, but they were both in a very similar shape. In fact they looked to have the exact same symptoms. Mulder had never seen so much blood leaving a person's living body. That was worrying, and potentially why Eddie had told him to seal the doors. If they were dealing with some sort of virus they could all be at risk of contagion.

Scully had barely reached for the defibrillators to use on the Albanian woman before Suzanne also lost her pulse completely. Mulder hurried to her side and began manual chest compressions. Scully saw what he was doing and returned her attention to the second woman. The defibrillator was portable and its power source was unknown to Mulder. He asked no questions of those sorts of things.

Scully shouted for clearance and Mulder flinched at the sound of the shock and the jolt of the body against the table. She attempted resuscitation via the machines only a few more times before turning around and ordering Mulder to step away from Suzanne. He did as he was told; he had not been able to rouse her. Both women were still bleeding. If Scully managed to get any result with the defibrillators it would be a miracle, and no guarantee of any sort of recovery.

Scully only attempted resuscitation for a short amount of time. Even if they had been able to stop the bleeding, they could never have pumped in enough blood to both women fast enough to save them. Both women were dead, and she ran shaking fingers through her hair. She had been in Antarctica for so long without any problems, nobody had come down with more than a sniffle, and suddenly two of the residents bled out in her operating theatre in a matter of minutes. Not only that, but she and Mulder were standing barefoot in pools of their blood.

"Mulder come next door, I'll get you some scrubs and wash your feet." Mulder stared down at his feet then, crinkling his toes under the warm, runny redness. He suddenly didn't feel very well, and he was grateful when Scully wrapped a secure but small hand around his elbow and guided him through a door at the back. He knew it was where she scrubbed up. He sat in a chair as she filled a bowl of water and put it on the ground, washing his feet for him. He complied, busy staring through the one-way glass at the two bodies and Eddie standing near the door making sure nobody else could see. "I'm sorry you had to see that," Scully explained when she realised he was mute. "Mulder?"

"Um?" he asked, looking down at her. She knelt and rested her hands on his knees, concern shining beneath the tears in her blue eyes.

"I said I'm sorry you had to see that," she repeated gently, rubbing his thighs through his pyjama bottoms. "I need to stay here and try to figure out what caused this. Maybe if you're up to it you could talk to people who were with them when it happened?"

"No," Mulder insisted firmly, shaking his head with more certainty than Scully had been prepared for. He had looked almost lost just staring back at the bodies. She thought getting him away from all the blood would have been a good idea, but he was determined and she did not understand why. Finally he explained, and she was surprised by what he said. "I'm not leaving you. You're the last woman left here now. I don't want that to happen to you too."

Scully's lips parted as her eyes widened. She had never thought much about the division of male and female in the complex. She was used to being in the minority, but the way Mulder had announced her newfound isolation from the rest made it sound so much more significant, and she knew it mattered more to him than it did to her. She allowed a brief, irrational fear for her own safety to show in her face and Mulder reached down to squeeze her shoulder. She reconnected with his eyes, both of them serious.

"I'm going to stay with you until you find out what killed them," he stated decisively.

They quickly dressed, Scully removing her pyjamas underneath her blue scrubs and throwing on some old clothes she kept in a bag in the room. Mulder wore a pair of Eddie's pink scrubs and though Scully had old sneakers in her bag she had no shoes for Mulder. He was so traumatised by what he had seen, however, that he refused to go back to their quarters to retrieve some. So she gave him some scrub booties for his feet and told him if he slipped and cracked his head open she would be very pissy. He had laughed, content with her concession.

xxx 

Mulder and Eddie stood passively against the far wall as Scully made a Y-incision on the Albanian, after a visual exam seemed to reveal a large haemorrhage in her abdomen, just like Suzanne. Mulder usually had no problem with watching Scully perform autopsies. She had a routine she followed and he had gotten used to it over the years. But he had not seen her do one in perhaps five years, maybe more, and he still believed it was ickier when the dead body was still warm. That was just too creepy for him, and he stood back and let her commentate. After all, somebody had to take notes. There were no voice recorders underground.

Yet Scully had so far performed her autopsy with very little talk. It was unlike her. One possibility was that she had no idea, but Mulder could not believe that. She had seen so much and he had presented her with the oddest causes of death, and it seemed pretty obvious to even him what had happened; they had bled out, gone into shock, and died. He knew Scully was searching for the 'why', and that she was focussed. She would have her suspicions, a list of possible causes of intra-abdominal bleeding, and she would be searching for their truth.

"Do these women have a medical history here?" he asked Eddie. Eddie, who looked unusual but comfortable in his pink scrubs over his jeans and t-shirt, shook his head with his arms folded over his broad chest.

"They came in when Dana got here and ordered everyone in. Noted nothing odd. Haven't had any complaints. What do you think, Dana? Hypovolemic shock?"

"Unquestionably," she replied. Her back was to them and Mulder could not see the abdominal contents as she peeled the skin back, but it was not very often he heard Scully say, 'ew' and mean it. "There's a large volume of blood in the peritoneal cavity," she announced. Mulder reached for his tiny notebook and pencil and scribbled it down. He watched Scully scratch her head. "This doesn't make sense," she sighed after several minutes of searching. "I can see what caused this woman's death but I don't know why. Eddie how did they present?"

"Uh, we were in the mess hall all eating and hangin' out, and I was chatting to Suzanne. She doubled over first, she was bleedin' when she hit the floor. She had been looking a bit paler than usual I suppose, but she seemed normal. Didn't complain about any pain until she keeled over. I picked her up to bring her up here and hit the alarm on my way when Arjeta screamed. She passed out as soon as she saw herself bleeding too and hit her head on the table on the way down. I took Suzanne and Ray brought Arjeta up."

"Did they eat something?" Mulder asked, even though he knew it was an insane notion that food could cause fatal haemorrhaging. But he was in Antarctica and the world had been divided up between aliens and supersoldiers; he was entitled to ask insane questions.

"No man we were just playin' cards," Eddie replied with a shake of his head.

"Do either of them have partners here?" Scully asked. "Boyfriends?"

"No one steady but I can ask around." Scully nodded and Eddie left via the main door, blood spattered but unaffected. He sealed the door behind him and Scully turned instantly to Mulder.

"Come and have a look at THIS," she ordered, her eyes wide. Mulder smirked when he realised she had been keeping her cool for Eddie's sake, and he wandered to her cautiously, peering over her shoulder at the exposed portion of the abdomen. Mulder's mouth opened at the sight of so much free blood. "I don't know how to explain it, but I've seen this before. Not quite as bad, but what's unbelievable is the setting. I have NO explanation for it. I'm not sure a complete autopsy could give me one."

"Why not?" he asked.

"Because, Mulder," she hissed. "This woman's uterus has ruptured. The way Eddie tells it, it happened in a matter of minutes, maybe even seconds. It's destroyed her reproductive system, it has torn all down the left side, the broad ligament's torn and everything has spilled into the peritoneal cavity. I observed a hysterectomy as a result of a serious rupture when I was at med school but I have never seen something this severe. And this woman wasn't pregnant."

"Are you sure?"

"Mulder a rupture this serious would only happen as a result of severe hypertension or, or because of past multiple non-lower-transverse caesareans, and it would happen at term, Mulder, at full term or during labour," Scully whispered. "This woman doesn't look pregnant, and neither does Suzanne." Mulder glanced over at the blonde woman just a metre from the Albanian and bit her bottom lip. They were both shapely women but relatively slim, and if they were pregnant they were definitely not showing.

"And you're sure that's what caused all the bleeding?"

"It's definitely the main cause. The tearing and bleeding is extensive even without all the extra blood a pregnant woman produces. I'm going to have to suction this out and examine all the arteries and organs for aneurisms and other tears but I wouldn't be surprised not to find anything else. Considering the blood she lost internally, not even considering external bleeding, she would have gone into shock quickly, and the pain would have been intense."

"Could something else have caused it?" Mulder asked. "To happen to both of them at the same time, that's unheard of, right?" Scully nodded seriously. "So could it have been...a reaction to something, or could somebody have attacked them?"

"I'll have to wait until I examine the tears but you couldn't cut internally like this without making an incision or using, perhaps a specially formatted laser? The fact is Mulder, this does not happen spontaneously to women who are not pregnant."

"Then they must have been," he insisted. Scully sighed, shaking her head.

"I would have known," she pressed. "I'm the doctor here. They would have had to come to me, people would have been talking, and it would have been obvious. What's visible to me of the tear looks a bit like a torn piece of bread, like somebody just ripped right down with no real precision. This would have hurt like all hell, Mulder." She glanced back over her shoulder at him as he scrunched up his nose. His eyes drifted to hers as she raised her eyebrows expectantly.

They suddenly found themselves very close together and Mulder had a flashback to the old days of autopsies with Special Agent Dana Scully and the question he had always asked himself: how close could you stand to the enigmatic Doctor Scully under the premise of observing a body without her catching on you really didn't like looking into open carcasses?

The answer to that question had always been 'very close'. Close enough to feel their breaths bouncing off each other's faces, close enough to feel their body heat, close enough so that their heads were tilted together in private conversations even though they were discussing the most public of murders, information anybody else in the room was just as entitled to.

Their relationship had moved far beyond those days, and Mulder felt no fear at resting his hand on her hip and brushing slightly inwards, her blue scrubs crinkling under his touch. He ducked his hand underneath and touched a thumb to the naturally curved tissue and skin just below her navel. Scully's stomach sucked in and she shivered at the intimate contact but their eyes never shifted. Hers were wide with confusion and understanding, if such a contradiction was possible in the one mind.

"Do you feel okay?" he asked seriously. She nodded, speechless, and Mulder took a step away. "Good. Because if you don't know what did this, and they weren't pregnant, and it happened at the same time in a public place without any provocation, then 'something' is going on here that we don't know about, and you're the only one left now."

"Mulder, that's not so unusual," she assured him. She could see the fright in his brown eyes as he shrugged, shifting his weight from side to side. This was the first real trauma they had experienced together in a very long time, she reminded herself. They had been standing in blood. Mulder was not himself.

"Then what explanation is there?" he asked. "What answer is there to the question of why there are only three women in this place of nearly a hundred people? Why were only three human women chosen to be here when there are so many men?"

"Firstly, a little concept known as the glass ceiling," Scully answered calmly. "All these people were chosen for their notoriety in their fields, and for their lack of family. Those who survived with family are all in the colonies. Nobody came here in a pre-existing relationship but us, Mulder. For all opinions here we should be in one of those colonies, and I know what people say about why we're not, and I know that most of them are right, but that does explain why there are not many women here. They need specialists in the colonies as well, and women with families in those positions would have been taken there before any of this happened."

"This all boils back down to the fact that they were never expecting us to come, yet when we did everything was ready and just as we wanted it, and they never asked, we never renovated, it was ALL to our liking as though they KNEW."

"Well they were forewarned," she reasoned. "We don't know how long we were unconscious for. But those things aren't important here. It doesn't help me figure out why these women spontaneously haemorrhaged in the mess hall." Mulder stared at her seriously.

"Then what can I do to help?"

xxx 

Mulder had no idea whether it was their day or their night, but considering how exhausted he felt it had to be early morning. He was sitting in the far corner taking notes as Scully spoke. She was onto her second pair of scrubs and they were stained with blood. He had watched her suction blood away and remove Arjeta's organs. She examined each one just as she had always done, but she found no evidence of other lesions or clots.

Some time ago she had moved onto Suzanne's body without drawing any conclusions about Arjeta's cause of death. From what Mulder had written down about Suzanne's body so far, their symptoms were identical, and he knew Scully wanted to complete both autopsies before even attempting to summarise the situation.

Eddie had questioned everyone who had been present and reported back with a collection of statements which all said the same thing, and he had confirmed that neither woman had been involved with any man in residence, and that neither had a reputation for sleeping around.

That had not shocked Scully, who by then had already confirmed neither had been pregnant.

"I don't know what to tell you Mulder," she mumbled eventually, turning around and removing her plastic safety glasses, sitting them on top of her orange, sweat-dampened hair. "This could not have happened in 'real' life. The risk factors with something like this relate to multiple births, past caesareans, perhaps the risk can be greater if labour is induced by prostaglandins or oxytocins or um, past ruptures or cuts but something this 'violent'...without any of those pre-existing causal factors...is impossible. It leads me to the conclusion that these women were, more than likely, killed somehow."

"Murdered," he stated, raising his eyebrows curiously.

"Maybe," she reasoned. "I don't know how, but I do know they are not pregnant, have never had children, and their injuries are identical in length and character and they both lost a very large amount of blood in a very short period of time. There was no chance to save them."

"See, a few months in the desert Scully, and we've wandered back onto the X Files."

"Yes," she chuckled. "The good news is it appears to be isolated to the women, so you are all safe, and for whatever reason so am I. There's no morgue here. We'll have to take the bodies outside to be buried. I have all the samples I'll need for testing. Then we can go back to the labs and get to work." She softened as she watched his expression glaze with exhaustion. "Mulder you can go to bed," she assured him. "I'm fine."

"Bet they thought they were fine too," he mumbled, shaking himself out of his tired daze and refocussing. "I'll help you wrap them up. Do you have body bags or sheets?"

"In the exam room," she replied, pointing to the door to his right, opposite the room they had changed in.

"I'm back," Eddie announced several minutes later as Scully was closing Suzanne's body and Mulder was busy wrapping Arjeta in a sheet. "You done? Mulder I found you some shoes."

"With this part of the investigation," Scully replied. "How is everyone?"

"Okay. A bit stunned. Are you going to release your report?"

"Yes," she declared. "Over the network. I have some samples I'd like to look at but for now cause of death remains known but...unknown. Suspected foul play."

"Whoa, hang on," Eddie interjected, getting their attention. "Foul play? They were murdered?"

"There is no biological reason this might have happened," she reasoned. "Perhaps something will show up in the tissue samples I'm going to test, but this is not a situation I've ever heard of and I've dealt with a lot of unusual deaths. I can only suspect that it was induced somehow."

"Induced," Eddie repeated sceptically. "What chemical introduced to the body causes a build-up of such pressure to a particular part of the body that it induces a haemorrhage?"

"I never said it was something I could identify," she replied. "I'm hoping there is evidence of it in the blood and tissue samples I've taken which could help me narrow the field, but I doubt it's something I've seen in my own science."

"You mean you think it's...that the aliens did this to them?" Eddie asked, his eyes wide with surprise. Scully and Mulder shared a curious glance and then nodded. "O-kay," he drawled. "Well you know more about that stuff than the rest of us, but I'd be careful about how you word it in your statement."

"It won't be explained until I know how to explain it," she promised. "But I will be making a statement to the general effect of what has happened and I will be calling for calm. There's no reason to panic the rest when there's no evidence they're at risk. Can you help us move the bodies outside?" Eddie nodded.

"I'll grab someone to help clean up."

xxx 

"Wow, Mulder didn't want to leave you huh," Michael announced once Eddie and Mulder finally left with the bodies in their arms. Scully smirked as she cleaned her tools and packed them away. Michael was busy mopping up blood. It was not within his normal duties as one of the cleaners but he did not seem bothered by it.

"He's afraid I'm going to keel over any second," she told him, laughing.

"It doesn't worry you?"

"If it did happen to me I'd be unconscious and then dead before I even had a chance to say goodbye," she reasoned. "Besides, I don't know, I feel fine. He just worries. We've been in some pretty dangerous situations before in regards to medical emergencies. We've both been at risk, and neither of us handles it well. As we get older, we take it harder."

"What did you find out?"

"I'm not really sure yet," Scully replied vaguely. Michael smirked at her, tall and casual as he leant against the handle of his mop. "You know I can't comment on an open investigation," she added, wondering at how much she sounded like her old self. Across from her Michael only smirked. "But can I ask, you've been here since the start, right?" He nodded. "Do you know if experiments are being performed here without my knowledge?"

"Experiments?" he asked curiously. "What sort?"

"Biological, chemical," she suggested. "I think it's possible these women were interfered with. And yet if they were being experimented on in any way I would expect to see more women here, but I don't. I would also expect somebody to have said something, unless any tests were being done without their knowledge, and even so I'm not sure how that could be."

"Why not?" Michael asked. "Could they just be drugged?"

"Yes but I would expect somebody to notice," Scully huffed, frustrated. "These women died from a human condition under inhuman circumstances, from a cause outside something I can understand. Is there somebody I could talk to about this here? Who would be able to give me answers?"

"You're asking if I know of anybody here who knows more than you?" he asked, confused. "I don't think so. None of us knows what's in the restricted area upstairs. Everyone is suspicious of you."

"But I'm just a person!" she exclaimed. "And when it came to trying to save these women today I had no chance. How can I be an effective doctor if I don't understand an alien science?"

"You think what killed those women is alien?" he asked. "There are no aliens here."

"I don't know," she conceded innocently, shrugging. "Never mind, Michael. I'm sorry. I'm just tired." She sighed, turning back to her table of implements and sorting through them.

Scully gasped when he closed in on her within a second. His large hand wrapped around her neck before she even registered the sound of the mop falling to the floor. Her eyes shut as one hand wrapped around his strong fingers and the other searched blindly for a weapon to use against him. He settled his second hand on her wrist and held her arm outstretched in mid-air.

"I don't think you want to cut me," he whispered, his voice hot on the top of her head. "I think you're smart enough to figure out why." Scully was having trouble figuring anything out apart from the fact her breathing was becoming painful and oxygen less plentiful as the tension of his hand around her throat increased. He was so large he could almost wrap his thin fingers the whole way around, and he towered over her. There was no cruel whisper in her ear because he would have to hunch considerably to get there, so he spoke down to her, right onto the crown of her head, leaning over her as though trapping her in a capsule.

"I can't breathe," she hissed as he slid his hand higher up her throat, gripping her from underneath her chin. Scully was aware of his fingers sliding over the pressure points by her pulse. She felt her eyes roll back in her head and her knees buckle, and then there was blackness.

xxx 

"Go, go, go shorty it's your birthday, we gonna party like it's your birthday," Mulder sung as he and Eddie made their way back to the domed complex entrance after giving the two bodies a shallow burial several hundred metres away.

"We gonna sip Bacardi like it's your birthday," Eddie joined in, laughing as Mulder clicked his fingers. "And you know we don't give a fuck-"

"It's not your birthday!" they finished in unison, chuckling and slapping a friendly high five.

"Nothin' like a little funeral to lift the spirits," Eddie taunted. Mulder shrugged. "Narr, seriously, I have fun with you man."

"Thanks," Mulder grinned. "And thanks for these clown shoes. What are they, size twenty?" Eddie rolled his eyes as Mulder continued. "It's pretty cool here. It'd be pretty boring without you. I'd be hanging around Scully a lot more. She'd be hatin' it."

"I don't think she minds as much as she says," Eddie laughed. "She always seems to be the one tracking you down."

"That's because I'm always chillin'," Mulder teased. "All I wanna do right now is go to sleep! She's gonna head up to the lab so I might crash on a chair in there or something. Don't wanna leave her with all those freaky samples. We gotta start tossing up ideas."

"Well you know I'm always here to help," Eddie stated, opening the hatch and climbing through first, Mulder following and locking it securely behind him. They jogged in silence down the narrow staircase, bypassing access to the restricted floor that only Scully could use from that entrance point. "That was pretty freaky today though."

"Tell me about it," Mulder agreed. "Dana did what she could, but those women were dead when you got them onto the table. Hey, were there ever other women here? Or was it always just Suzanne and Arjeta?"

"There were others," he replied. "They didn't deal with the conditions so well."

"What do you mean?" Mulder asked. "Because Dana's had no problems adjusting to the 'conditions'; they're as close to home as could be really hoped for. Were they all claustrophobic? We heard there had been some 'trouble' here or something like that, without having a doctor on staff. Where did they go?"

"Uh, well see-" Eddie hesitated, not sure how to say what he wanted to say. Mulder was right behind him. "I'll explain in a sec," he promised, deciding he may as well tell them both together. Mulder nodded, accepting his answer and pushing through the door to take them into the room with the one way glass just beyond the operating theatres.

Mulder hummed thoughtfully when at first he saw nothing through the glass. Scully must have finished tidying up, he realised. Perhaps she was upstairs in the labs already. But then he saw her scalpels and saws still sitting on the little metal table beside one of the beds and his stomach turned. Scully was pedantic about her instruments. He remembered her yelling at him in the desert about the scalpel in the sand. Nothing ever got left behind.

"What?" Eddie asked, having heard Mulder gasp. Mulder crossed the room in great strides and lunged through the door, looking everywhere at eye level before his periphery turned his gaze downwards. Michael was hunched over Scully. Her face was covered by her hair and turned away, but she appeared motionless. Mulder knew that if she had been conscious and aware that her shirt was torn and her breasts were exposed and that Michael's mouth had been on her she would have been fighting. She would have tried to kill him.

"HEY!" Mulder shouted, even though he hadn't needed to. Michael had turned at the sound of the door, stunned to be caught, his dark eyes wide and filled with lust and surprise. One hand had frozen against Scully's waist, one on her shoulder. Anger coursed through Mulder as he stalked forward and lunged at Michael, punching him hard in the cheek. He crashed backwards, his legs still tangled with Scully's, and Mulder prepared to throw himself on top of the man to really fight him, when Eddie stopped him.

"I'll handle it," he urged. Mulder struggled under Eddie's secure grasp. "Mulder, stop it," Eddie ordered. Mulder growled, turning to try to fight Eddie. He was going to fight somebody. They had separated him from Scully, after all. What had Michael done to her?

Mulder did not get a chance to ponder the answer as Eddie tossed him away, sick of his struggling. Mulder flew through the air and landed heavily on his side beside Scully. He wasn't sure what happened then. He blacked out for long moments over a period of time, and each time he opened his eyes he saw Scully's orange hair tangled against the back of her head. His head throbbed and he groaned each time he woke, writhing on the floor as he tried to put himself back together. Eddie had thrown him, not just shoved, but thrown.

The next time Mulder felt himself rouse from unconsciousness there was a voice calling him forth. Familiar and warm and loving, and he felt himself puff in pain when lips brushed his forehead. Scully, he realised. Scully was awake. She was holding his head in her lap. His eyes fluttered slowly open and he stared up at her with a deep frown. She was leaning over him, cradling him just as he had suspected. Tears were in her eyes but her smile was wide and relieved, and he tried to smile back.

"You'll be okay," she told him, her voice shaking as she again leant over and rested her lips to his forehead. "It's okay now Mulder. We're alone here. It's okay. Where does it hurt?" Mulder could only groan and shut his eyes again. He did not know for how long. He hated to leave her. He didn't want to go back to the darkness but he had no choice. His head chose for him. He moaned deeply at the pain in his chest. He didn't want to leave her, but he had to.


	12. Chapter 12

Twelve

Mulder awoke to a warm towel being laid over his forehead and hummed in momentary comfort. He was in his bed, he realised. He was covered in blankets and was being tended to by his girlfriend, who was okay, he reminded himself. He had seen her face smiling down at him. He was sure it had been true. Right?

When he opened his eyes and saw Eddie leaning over him instead of Scully, he jumped. Suddenly anger and fear assaulted him as his eyes widened and his mouth opened to declare his hostility towards the man that had thrown him onto the floor and left him there. Eddie's strong hand clamped around Mulder's mouth and he got his words in first.

"Shh, you'll wake her," he hissed, gesturing to the bed beside him. Scully was lying on top of the covers, curled up in a foetal position. A blanket had been thrown over her but she was tense in sleep. "I had to give her something to calm her down," Eddie continued, his voice soft. "When I came back to you both she went into hysterics. I carried you both down here."

Mulder looked around to confirm that he was in his bed. He was. It was their bedroom. On Scully's bedside table was a photograph of the two of them in New York, and on his bedside table sat a photo of himself with his sister Samantha as children. Scully was asleep on their quilt and he could see the edge of the aquarium just outside the doorway.

"How'd you get us in here?" Mulder asked. He had no conscious memory of being carried or having his eyes held open to get through the locks they had on their private sanctuary, their home.

"I can get in anywhere," Eddie replied. "But I'd never come in here before, I swear it. Now lie back down Mulder. You hit your head pretty hard. Sorry but I had to do it." Mulder succumbed to the firm hand on his chest pushing him back down onto the bed.

"I'll kill the bastard," he mumbled, suddenly tired again. Concussion, he self-diagnosed. He'd had enough of those in the past to recognise the symptoms.

"He's been secured," Eddie promised. "He didn't penetrate her." Mulder choked back a sob as he pictured such an event and Eddie rested a comforting hand on his shoulder. "She's breathing, I've covered her up. She's fine. I never thought he would go after her, or else I never would have left him alone with her."

"You knew he might?" Mulder asked, stunned. "And you didn't warn us? Scully didn't even get a chance to fight back, by the looks of it-"

"He would have stopped her from fighting. But don't worry, she'll be safe now. I'm going to stay here while you both sleep. Sleep, Mulder." Mulder suddenly found himself without another choice, and he let his eyes close, succumbing to the throbbing of his head.

xxx 

Scully woke up with a gasp, her eyes snapping open. The lights were on around them but that meant nothing. She had no idea what 'time' it was. She looked around her room, frowning and trying to clear the tendrils of sleep and aching from her mind. She turned to the figure asleep in the bed beside her and the memories came back. A familiar hand around her throat, 'don't cut me', the blackness, waking up, seeing her exposed chest and the swelling and moisture, finding Mulder passed out beside her with pain etched across his expression, hauling him onto her lap, coaxing him awake only to have him pass out, crying and screaming at Eddie to get away from her when he returned, reluctantly swallowing the pills in his hand still holding onto Mulder, not letting him go...

Somehow she was back in her home, and Mulder was asleep. She looked down at herself. Her top was torn but she had a blanket sitting loosely around her shoulders; she had pulled it up with her as she sat, and she pulled it tighter to cover herself as she lay down once more and rolled towards her partner. She leant her head forward and brushed her nose and lips up and down the side of his face, nuzzling him in an attempt to comfort him in his sleep. She was surprised when he moaned softly and reached for her, tangling his fingers in her hair.

"Dana," he whispered, pained and barely conscious.

"I'm here," she promised, her voice shaking as she began to weep. "Where does it hurt?"

"My head," he mumbled. "Feel sick. Concussion."

"I'm here," she repeated, sitting up and reaching out to run her hands through his hair to search for lumps and fractures. She found the large lump at the back of his head and he sucked in a breath through gritted teeth. She resisted the urge to pull her fingers away quickly just because he was in pain. She was his doctor in that moment, and she let her hands journey down to around his ribs and torso, checking for any other injuries he may not be aware of. Satisfied it was just his head, she returned her attention to his face. His eyes were bleary but staring at her. She looked carefully into both of them. "I need to get you back upstairs," she whispered, stroking his cheek. He shook his head reluctantly. "Yes," she ordered. "You need fluids and I need to keep an eye on you in an environment where I can be professional."

"Don't think can walk," he muttered tiredly, shutting his eyes. Scully nodded, getting off the bed and wrapping the blanket around her. She walked out into the living room, not surprised to see Eddie stretched out their couch considering they had to have been moved by strong people in the first place. He was staring up at her expectantly and she pulled the blanket around her more tightly, protecting herself from his serious, dark eyes.

"I want to take Mulder back to the exam rooms," she announced. "He needs an IV and I need to monitor his concussion. I want to take a closer look at the bump on his head."

"He was struggling to try to get to Michael to beat up on him," Eddie explained. "I tossed him to the ground. Didn't realise he was hurt that bad until I saw you so upset." He got to his feet and took a wary step forward with outstretched hands. "I'm sorry, Dana."

"It's okay," she whispered nervously. "Just carry him. I'm going to get changed. I'll come out when I'm ready for you to take him." Eddie nodded, turning to stare at the fish tank as she shut the door softly between them.

Xxx 

Mulder smiled when he felt Scully's fingers in his hair. How long had he slept for this time, he wondered? She was humming 'Somewhere over the Rainbow' and he relaxed under her attention, taking stock of how he was feeling. The headache which had been throbbing behind his eyes had become more of a constant aching. One of his elbows was stinging but he thought it was probably just bruised. He had been in too much pain earlier to even notice. He was sure he had landed on it. Perhaps it had saved him from a worse head injury. Mulder had been punched and knocked out in the past, but never with so much force. He had hit the ground like a crash test dummy in a vehicular safety demonstration without a seatbelt.

"Hi," Scully whispered when his eyes opened to meet her. He managed a smile and she grinned.

"Keep singing, Doc," he teased. "Got a beautiful voice." Scully rolled her eyes and shook her head coyly, unable to control the tears gathering in her eyes. How many times had she leaned over him as he regained consciousness from some sort of injury? She had lost count after a while, but it had never gotten easier. "How long was I out?" Mulder asked.

"A long time," she replied with a choked voice. "Maybe a day since we got you up here. You're in my exam room. I've got fluids going into you and painkillers, and I haven't left your side, okay? Don't be scared. I'm right here sweetheart."

"Not afraid," he promised. "More worried about you."

"I'll be okay," she whispered. "There's not a scratch on me."

The door opened behind them and Eddie grinned when he saw Scully gripping Mulder's hand and staring into his open eyes.

"Hey, you're up," he declared happily, walking over and checking the IV still draining into the vein on the top of his hand. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I was in a car crash," Mulder answered, sticking with his earlier analogy. Eddie chuckled.

"I'm sorry man. You didn't give me much of a choice. I didn't want you to go one on one with Michael and you were really getting out of control. I didn't mean for you to hit your head so hard. And I've been keeping an eye on the Doc here for you so no need to worry."

"Why should we trust you?" Mulder hissed angrily, squeezing Scully's hand as she tried to soothe him with a more gentle touch. "You separated us," Mulder accused. "You let him try to, try to- He didn't, right? You said he didn't."

"Fox I'm okay," Scully insisted, turning his face by the chin so she could implore him to believe her with her eyes. "Mulder I'm not hurt."

"I didn't separate you," Eddie added, pulling up a chair and sitting beside Mulder. Scully smirked as Mulder shifted subtly closer to her, not wanting to be vulnerable in front of the man who had been one of his better friends in the complex. "Not like you're sayin'. I just figured Dana wouldn't be able to really carry the bodies anyway; would be easier if we did it, and I know she didn't want to leave Michael alone with all her stuff. The Doc's gotta clean up her own surgery. I learned that the hard way myself when she got here."

"Where is he?" Mulder asked.

"He's having some alone time to think about what he did. I gotta apologise for him. He really didn't mean what it looked like he meant."

"Uh," Scully whispered. "What did it look like he meant?" she asked. "I don't know...I don't know what happened to me. I just know he put his hand around my neck and I lost consciousness, and then when I woke up I was...partially exposed."

"He put his mouth and hands on you, but that's all," Eddie replied seriously with wide, wise eyes. "Do you have any marks?"

"I have some bruising, enough to indicate forceful...contact," she whispered, blushing as she turned her head away from Eddie and focussed just above Mulder's closest shoulder. "No broken skin but...swelling-"

"This is what I was afraid of," Mulder whispered, his brow furrowing at the thought of her assault. "Only woman here now-"

"It's not like that," Eddie finished quickly.

"The hell it's not," Mulder huffed. "You said there used to be more women here, they left or something, and he raped them right? He's gone through everyone on staff and he probably caused those women today to die too."

"Michael likes Dana," Eddie insisted. "He never would have done to her what was done to the others. He couldn't."

"Of course he could," Mulder argued. "She was passed out. He could have done anything he wanted to her and we might never have stopped it in time, and I, I couldn't have, I-"

"Just calm down," Eddie urged Mulder gently as Scully's composure frayed. He supposed she could listen to herself being spoken about for only so long before she started to picture it too, and she leant her head onto Mulder's stomach and cried softly. Mulder felt instantly guilty when he realised he had upset her, and he rubbed the back of her neck in an effort to calm her tears. The most important thing was that she was okay, he reminded himself. Anger would not get them anywhere. "I think it's time we talked," Eddie announced. "But I'll give you both some minutes to calm down." He stood and left them, shutting the door.

Mulder pulled Scully onto the bed with him once they were alone and rolled onto his side so that she could fit pressed up against him on the narrow mattress. She tucked her head under his chin and they held each other until her tears subsided and her breathing grew heavy.

"Where does it hurt?" he asked her. She took his hand and guided it around the underside of her right breast on top of her shirt, then over her erect nipple. She wasn't wearing a bra, he realised, and she whimpered when he touched her too hard, though to him it felt as though he barely touched her at all. Looking between them, he pulled the material of her shirt open and peeked. Then he wrapped his arms back around her waist and allowed her to rest against him, hoping his chest pressed against hers wasn't causing her worse pain. She seemed content.

"Mulder I need to tell you something," she whispered. He hummed. "When Michael came up behind me I went to grab the scalpel to defend myself and he stopped me. He said I didn't want to cut him, that I shouldn't and that I knew why. Mulder...he's not human."

"You sure he wasn't just making a threat?" he asked. "As in, try to cut me bitch and I'll hurt you worse?"

"No, that wasn't it," she assured him. "It almost sounded like a gentle warning. As though he 'didn't' want me hurt worse. I was still afraid and I don't remember much afterwards but I remember thinking about the green blood and I knew that was what he was talking about, and that he had killed those women. I don't know how but he did. When Eddie came back you had passed out again and I was so afraid for us, but he gave me something to sleep, and he helped carry you back up here, and he's been helping me look after you. He 'has' been looking after you, actually. I've just been sitting here like a worried wife."

"Think Eddie also not human?" Mulder asked, drowsy but aware of Scully's opinions.

"They're always together," she whispered. "I think he knows. What did you mean about the other women?"

"He said there had been others. I asked him. He said they couldn't handle the conditions or some bullshit, and he said he would explain just as soon as we got back to you and that's when we found you, so he never got a chance. You think Michael killed those women?"

"I felt it when he touched me," she hissed. "I just want to feel you touching me Mulder."

"I'm here," he promised, echoing her earlier words with equal sentiment. "I won't let go."

Xxx 

Another few days passed and life in the complex had returned to a somewhat normal schedule. Mulder had decided that nobody seemed very perplexed by the unusual and dramatic way Suzanne and Arjeta had died. It was as though nobody had cared about them. He had expected at least one person to demonstrate some form of sadness but they had all gone about their work. Mulder wondered briefly about whether they were ALL aliens, but they couldn't be because Scully had examined them when she had arrived. She would have said something if she had known.

Scully. Mulder had found her sitting in the centre of his 'open room' with her eyes shut; probably pretending she was somewhere else. It was nothing but an empty room without him there, but as he stepped in behind her he turned it into their baseball field, where he had taught her how to hit a home run. That night he could have held onto her forever, and they'd had so much fun compared to their usual nights of casework or loneliness.

"Open your eyes, Mrs Mantle," he teased, crouching down behind her and dragging his fingers through the grass he could feel there. Scully opened her eyes and grinned, tilting her head back to rest against his hunched shoulder. "What are you doing in here?" he asked.

"I was meditating," she replied. "Why?"

"Eddie is looking for you. He says you've been avoiding him for too long and he wants to talk to us. I think we should."

"Can we talk here?" she asked hopefully. "I'd feel safer here." Mulder nodded, pained by her admission because it revealed to him a deep confusion within her. What she had meant but not said was that she felt safe somewhere real, but they were not anywhere real. They were in a room that looked like a baseball field only because Mulder wanted it to. He was not anything special, he had no powers. It was not 'him' making those decisions. It was somebody in charge of the room who could hear him. Sometimes Mulder got what he wanted, and other times for whatever reason he got a substitute, his second choice.

He silently left to retrieve Eddie and returned quickly. Eddie had been following Mulder around all day. Mulder had avoided leading him to Scully for as long as possible, but the man had been unrelenting. In the end Mulder had wanted it over, and he wanted answers. Scully was the one who had withdrawn.

Not that he blamed her, Mulder realised when he saw her still sitting in the room as it became the field again upon his return. She turned around and stood, aware the change meant he had come back. She dug her hands into the back pockets of her jeans and took a small step forward.

"Ah, here you are," Eddie mused, though she had a feeling he could have found her anytime. "How are you feeling?"

"Fabulous," she answered, her voice dry and serious, the sarcasm thick but evenly spread. There was no anger, but there was plenty of distrust. "What do you want?"

"Don't you want to know what happened?"

"I don't know what I want to know anymore. I just want to go back to having a normal life."

"When's the last time you had one of those?" he asked.

"Before the other day," she huffed. "Before this whole invasion. Before I was forced to come here just because nowhere else would take me. What is this place?"

"This is where the war is won," he answered steadily. Mulder took a step away to look at Eddie curiously while also moving closer to Scully, and Eddie gestured for them all to sit on the grass near the pitcher's mound. Above them it was night, and stars twinkled and blinked in the sky that stretched far beyond the physical boundaries of the room itself.

"You're not human, are you," Scully stated finally. Eddie simply shook his head. "I know who you are."

"Do you?" he asked with a coy smirk. She growled softly in the back of her throat and Mulder turned to stare at her. He had no idea what was coming next. She had never said she 'knew' Eddie. "Who am I then?" he prompted.

"You're the psychologist from the island, and Michael is the doctor. His hand around my neck, I recognised his touch from the processing centre when he put the patch over my pulse and when he had his hands there examining my glands. He's already seen me naked. He probably really got off on the pelvic exam."

"Is that true?" Mulder gasped as Eddie sighed. He peered at the black man curiously. "You don't look much like an old white guy to me."

"It's true," he replied. Mulder's mouth opened as Eddie instantly transformed back into the elderly man who had asked him so many questions at the processing centre. He held the disguise for only a few seconds before returning to the person Mulder knew him as, and Mulder clamped his mouth shut. Beside him, Scully had only turned her head away.

No wonder she felt so violated, Mulder realised. She had been uncomfortable with the physical on the island to begin with, and to find out now that not only had the person been alien, but that he had then tried to assault her- That 'thing' had put his hands inside her and on her and she had trusted him as any patient trusted a doctor. Mulder felt his temper start to get the better of him again and fought it down, pouting and frowning at Eddie. He had to direct his emotions somewhere; he could not let Scully see how badly upset he was for her.

"Michael has a problem controlling himself sometimes," Eddie stated softly. "He feels very badly for betraying you, Dana. And you, Mulder. I have impressed upon him the degree to which he has hurt you."

"What did he want from me?" Scully asked. "If he's not human..." She drifted off, letting Eddie think about how her sentence should end. Eddie sighed, shaking his head.

"I want you to know that nobody else here knows about what I'm going to tell you," he began. "The others are all human. Now you can believe that or not believe it, but it is true. Whatever distance you keep from each other has more to do with your own differing cultures and roles here. You are the only two human medical staff, the only couple, and you are also the only true Americans. It probably would not surprise you to know that those we work for have grown tired of dealing with the Americans. They do not trust them like they once did."

"What about us?" Scully asked. "Do they trust us then?"

"They do," he confirmed. "They provided you with everything you ever desired to know, isn't that correct?" Scully nodded, though she had never spoken to Eddie about the resources locked away on the restricted floor. "And Mulder knows as well?" he asked. She nodded again. "Then would you like to hear a story?"

"Okay," she whispered, risking a glance up into his eyes and seeing only a wide, familiar smile and a kind, understanding expression. He looked nothing like the old man from the island, but underneath she could see he was the same, and Michael was the same, and she had always been more comfortable dealing with Eddie's old man. There was a lot to be said for personality and instinct, she decided as she managed to return a wavering smile. Mulder moved closer to her until their folded knees were touching on the grass, and Eddie also crossed his legs in front of them, relaxing back on his long arms.

"Colonisation of earth has been on the agenda of our 'people' for a long time," he began. "We wanted to come and live here, not destroy it like we have. We were drawn into an agreement which I know you know all about. I know your history with your law enforcement and what you discovered. I also know that you were in Antarctica some time ago and that you were responsible for the destruction of the first base."

"That wasn't his fault," Scully defended when she saw Eddie smirk at Mulder. "They had taken me, and-"

"And they gave him the vaccine, I know, Dana," Eddie promised. "There is no anger towards you for things which were out of your control. Believe that, for if it were not true you never would have been allowed here. We thought you had died, but your DNA was never received by us in the system. There were others we found who resembled you, your family who had been living at the time, but we never found you or Mulder, and we believed then that you were alive." Scully bit her bottom lip but nodded. Confirmation again her family was dead. She had not thought about them for several days.

"We have been in negotiations with the supersoldier program for many human years. We had competing interests and we both wanted to resettle. The supersoldier program wanted to span worldwide and we were against that. We did not like the Americans and distrusted their dealings with the supersoldiers and your military. It is one of the reasons why this base was set up as a neutral negotiation point. We do not want to speak to them."

"But you speak to us," Scully whispered, reaching out and resting a hand on Mulder's jiggling knee, urging him to calm. He sat silently and still under her touch, listening.

"Something happened to our population in the midst of these negotiations not long prior to what you call 'the invasion'. A plague descended upon us and killed a large number of us. We have been unable to identify or cure it, and all who were infected have died. All who were infected were the ones that take us in for procreation. They are not women to us, we have different boundaries and we are not so distinct in our gender. But to put it into terms you will understand, all the women were killed, and we have no means of reproduction left."

"What about science?" Mulder asked, breaking his silence. "If we can create children in petrie dishes and if the supersoldier program can grow supersoldiers until they're big enough to fit into tanks, then surely your people can also reproduce artificially."

"We tried that," Eddie replied with a sigh, shaking his head, his thick hair bobbing side to side. "They still contracted the plague and died. It is not atmospheric or geological, and it has led us to believe it is a defective gene or something we simply do not understand."

"Terrorism from another race?" Mulder asked.

"I do not know," Eddie answered. "I am a scientist and a doctor in my world also but we are at a loss. We have never suffered like this before. I am just telling you what has happened."

"So was Michael trying to..." Scully drifted off cautiously, raising her eyebrows and leaving Eddie without a doubt about what she was asking.

"He was not trying to reproduce with you," Eddie assured her. "He cannot do that. The distance that has evolved between our genetic blueprints is too vast now. We believe the cause of the plague stems from a mutation in those which take us in and we have exhausted all our resources searching for a cure. Our last hope is to find a cure from this planet. Our origins and yours are the same but we have diverged. The diversity on your planet is far superior to ours, and though we have superior technology, we have had the resources available to us to develop that technology which you have not. We believe the key to achieving that diversity in our own environment lies within this planet."

"But...diversity is not something we chose," Scully pointed out. "It evolved over hundreds of millions of years. Species did become extinct and others rose and survived. What makes you so sure your people aren't destined to go the way of the dinosaurs, if in fact you know what those are?"

"I know what dinosaurs are," he laughed. "I have been fascinated by this earth for my whole life, ever since I was young. I understand it much better than most of my people, its intricacies, and it is why I was chosen to come here. Michael is young. He was chosen because his caretaker, uh, his 'father', is an important person in the military, and he is being used here as a spy. I am also meant to be a spy, hidden amongst the neutral humans, but I take a genuine interest and I have been allowed here to search for clues in your world to help us avoid 'the way of the dinosaurs', as you put it. There is something else you said which sets you apart from us Dana, and has always interested me."

"What's that?" she asked. Eddie smiled.

"You said we may be destined to extinction. Spirituality is something of the human world. It is not anywhere else that we know of, and it is not something we feel amidst ourselves either. We have no religion, we never look to Gods or texts, and we have no concept of what you term 'the soul'. Our personalities are, to us, defined purely by science. It's amazing to study."

"You study the soul?" Scully asked sceptically with raised eyebrows.

"It is too complex and varied to study," he replied. "I wish I could understand it better."

"Do you think that might be what is missing from your people to prevent the plague?" Mulder asked. "Which I don't really get...Do these 'women' have little receptor babies?" Eddie laughed loudly and Scully grinned, leaning into Mulder and nudging him. He was being funny on purpose but it was still a genuine question.

"No," Eddie replied. "We, the uh 'male' is all that is created. They do not reproduce themselves, so when they all died-"

"Does that mean you all have sex with the same person?" Mulder exclaimed, screwing up his nose. "So you could be doing it with your mother?"

"It is nothing like what you speak of," Eddie hurried to assure them both. "It is much more clinical. Passion is something I can only sense in a human body, and we have none of the intricacies in our relationships that you do. Though we are a social people; it's just not divided up into men and woman. It's more just 'us'. Children are raised not in pairs as they are here but within the group, under the watch of caretakers who are father figures."

"Do you have any?" Mulder asked.

"I'm sure I do but I am not a caretaker, my work is too important to them, and I requested to come here. I have no real desire to be a caretaker. What is the point if everyone is going to die? It is more important for me to be here, and I like your world. I prefer to be here."

"So if you wanted to try to find a cure, why'd you destroy all the land and people you were given that you liked so much?" Mulder asked. "What happened to it all?"

"It was taken for testing, but I have since learned the results have yielded few clues."

"What did you mean about my DNA before?" Scully asked. "How do you know me? I was never abducted by aliens. How did you know to look for me or for Mulder?"

"Because of what used to be in your neck," Eddie replied. "It's been removed. Nice lie, by the way. We had a chuckle after you left trying to picture you falling in a way that your neck landed on what was left of a tree trunk so that it made a perfect puncture wound where we knew your chip had been. They removed it, didn't they? The supersoldiers?"

"They nearly killed her," Mulder grumbled.

"They did not," Eddie assured him. "She was forced to reject it. I'm afraid that technology comes from us. It was safe to remove after so much time, and we had located you by then. You are aware they could be used as tracking devices?" Scully and Mulder nodded. "Each contained not just a tracking signal, but a genetic identifier. It was a part of you, so the signal we receive for each is unique. Yours was always very strong, Dana. I suspect it was stronger than the others because it held message of your cure. You were very sick, correct?"

"I was," she confirmed. "What does my 'signal' have to do with anything? Did you know I would come here?"

"I thought you would not. I did not realise you were infertile as a result of the experiments performed on you by the human conspirators. When we got word a couple were to be processed on the island we travelled there immediately, and I was glad to see you both alive. I knew the chip was gone then; you had no signal when I saw you, but I knew it was you."

"How does all this help you find a cure for whatever's killing your receptors?" Mulder asked. He simply could not call them women. Scully was a woman. Whatever Eddie was talking about was something entirely different. "You said genetically we're poles apart."

"We are desperate," Eddie replied. "I knew Dana's signal was strong and a message filled with hope. I knew who you both were because of my studies and the run-ins you have had with visitors from my world over time, most you were not aware of. I have heard their stories. We were warned of you and how much you knew. We knew you had attacked the earlier base. The conspirators identified you to us. They wanted us to fear you as much as they did."

"At the end there were aliens in positions of power," Mulder explained. "We always got the impression they had sinister intentions, and certainly at the thought of colonisation-"

"Everybody fears your people," Eddie replied. "They know what you did in an attempt to deceive us, and they turn that fear into hate. They cannot see that your people have been afraid of us also. We thought allowing you to survive as a slave race would be a good thing, but we were forced to abandon those plans when we learned of the supersoldier program; the ultimate defence of your world. Though I knew it had to be stopped. It still must be."

"Why is that?" Scully asked. "Why did 'you' know?"

"Because I understand that you live in a way different to us, and I know the significance you place on your lives, and I did not think a supersoldier was a good way to live."

"As opposed to turning everyone into human-alien hybrids," Mulder stated doubtfully.

"The lesser of two choices," he sighed. "But that is all beside the point now because of the Convention we were forced to sign, or we risked any opportunities to research a cure."

"I don't know what we could give you from our planet to solve your problem," Scully stated. "As far as I'm aware you are the ones who have given us knowledge. On your crafts I read scripture, and human science, and I thought-"

"That we created you all as some kind of pastime?" Eddie finished, shaking his head. "We didn't. I do believe our ancestors at the very beginning, in bacterium or whatever form, were the same, but we diverged in different environments. What made us who we are now did not survive your evolution of extreme climates, but we are now able to survive here also, because we too have evolved. What you saw on the craft was our studies of your world. Your religions are fascinating Dana. They have kept me awake for time on end as I learned them."

"Some would say our religions are very primitive," she challenged. "That God is a myth created to help us make sense of a world in which we are present for only a short period of time, and that it is used by modern civilisation as means to command armies for selfish gain."

"That may be what people have made of it, but we do not have those beliefs. We only believe in the science of how we came to be. So to learn of a culture of faith was a foreign concept to me as a young man. I notice the crucifix on your neck constantly. You are Roman Catholic?"

"Yes," she whispered, blushing.

"Very interesting," he assured her kindly. "I do enjoy the humanity of it all."

"So um," Mulder hummed. "That's all really interesting Eddie, really, we're completely sucked in to your little story, and we would love to hear all about it, but what I really want to know is why Michael attacked Dana and what happened to the women who were here. And I want to know how you expect to firstly, defeat the supersoldiers and then find a cure for your plague so you can breed new receptors. We can discuss all the fluffy bits in the breaks. How does that sound?"

"I'm happy to continue," he assured them. "My answers to those questions are simple."


	13. Chapter 13

Thirteen

The starry sky remained unmoving above them as Mulder, Scully and Eddie sat cross-legged in the centre of Mulder's baseball fantasy. Scully was intrigued, and though she still felt shamed and a little tender, her anger towards Michael had faded. She did trust Eddie and she could see that he felt badly, and she also felt for him. If in fact what he was saying about the extinction of his species was true, she challenged herself cautiously. It definitely made their war with the supersoldiers more complicated. It was integral the supersoldiers not find out.

Though she still had a lot of questions, she focussed on Eddie's explanation for her attack, an explanation Mulder had called for because Eddie had skirted the issue several times already and Mulder had been growing frustrated. His thigh was tense underneath Scully's hand and his brow was furrowed in concentration as he memorised every word. At least Scully hoped he was memorising every word. Eddie's words were rushing through her head so fast she felt dizzy and was barely retaining a thing. She was going to need to hear parts again.

"Michael attacked Dana because he does not understand humanity," Eddie announced. "And he does not understand the idea of woman. We have nothing which compares. To come here and see such diverse beauty in a species is something foreign to us and Michael, I'm afraid, was not sufficiently prepared for it. When we realised your infertility, Dana, we knew you could be no use to us as a test subject and Michael's mind, which he hid from me, became too curious. He is not a doctor or a scientist as I am and he has not studied the human biology-"

"He asked me all those questions," she interrupted.

"The interview was short compared to your written test, correct?" She nodded. "I'm afraid he learned the questions and their answers. I marked your paper based on what I knew. He was given that position in the processing centre because of his caretaker's position. You call it nepotism I think." Scully nodded. "I must confess, and you know by now I hope, that I am vastly superior in skill to him. He is not very tender. I am sorry he was the one that performed both your physicals. He has done them on the others here, but I have always coached him in how to touch and what to search for. He reported all your answers to me afterwards."

"You're saying he didn't know what he was doing was wrong?" Mulder asked. "If that's true why did he strangle her? He's in this human body he doesn't understand. That's dangerous."

"I know it is, and it's why I've been keeping a close watch on him," Eddie replied. "But he doesn't understand the emotional connection humans have to their sexuality. We are not a sexual species. He doesn't understand why you sleep together and why you touch. You were the first couple he ever observed 'together', as no other couples live here. He's asked me a lot of questions. He was confused as to why Dana could not be able to reproduce and yet still 'look' like she could, and he took himself too far in his investigations. I apologise for him."

"Where is he?" Scully asked softly.

"In containment in the depths of Tower Three," Eddie answered. "Far away from you, though I have tried to explain it to him. Violation of space is a concept we do not have. I've learned through mimicking and reading people and through my studies. And the reverence you have for your relationship is something we do not have. It is easy for us to become lost in the sense of it. Don't get me wrong, we care about each other and we protect each other, but he would not have understood Mulder's anger. If I translate how we reproduce to your language, we rape, and it is not a criminal offence because there is no real violation."

"He understood enough to know she had to be unconscious," Mulder huffed.

"He was afraid she would cut him and his blood would hurt her," Eddie replied. "She had reached for her scalpel. He did not understand he was hurting her otherwise. To us, those that take us in are objects. They do not feel pain and they do not bruise or bleed. We have no tears and no concept of crying as you do. I'm not trying to excuse his assault, and I should have better informed him. He has not spent so much time with one woman since arriving."

"But he's nice to me," Scully replied with a frown. "Kind of shy. He never showed any confusion before. It just happened. I just turned my back and he was all around me."

"I think his plan was to find a moment with you alone. He's told me he only wanted to examine your breasts because they are reproductive in nature and he was drawn to them." Mulder rolled his eyes as Scully smothered a chuckle. "He does like you both. He just lost his way for a moment. If you ever feel up to it, he would like to see you."

"Okay," Scully agreed softly, nodding. "I'll um, think about it." Eddie smiled. "What's going to happen to him?"

"He has to stay here. His caretaker's an idiot. If he got his way we would be enslaving you. Myself and a large number of other visitors think that is ridiculous and we could survive side by side. We are the optimists, you see. We are also the best studied."

"And did this 'study' have something to do with the deaths of those women today and the disappearance of the others?" Mulder asked. "Why does nobody around here seem upset at all that they are gone? If you hadn't assured us they don't know, I would have thought you had threatened them into silence."

"Who would they complain to?" Eddie asked. "They don't have a government who can do anything anymore. They have no one to stand up for their rights. That being said, they really do not know. We act as surprised as they do and after so many died before you came, they began to see it as out of their control. They realised it was only women being taken."

"So you did kill them," Scully stated, paling. "Eddie, that's-"

"Let me interrupt and explain," he urged. "A theory exists that what has become deficient in our receptors as they have aged, which has become ingrained in what they are so all efforts to reproduce them result in the same problems, has to do with something that can be sourced from human women."

"Buddy," Mulder chuckled. "From what you're saying, I can tell you right now a woman is much more complex than you might think and they are all different." Scully shoved him playfully as he laughed and Eddie also joined in, grinning widely. "Genetically I mean."

"I have discovered this," he agreed. "I do not necessarily believe this theory is sound but I am bound to test it. The women who were here did not suffer as the women the other day did. They did not die that way. They died without pain. I ensured it."

"But why?" Scully asked. "You have our genome. Our complete human genome. What could you get from us which you could not create? And if it's so vital for your survival, how could you have survived for so long without it? Why are you so sure a cure for you exists on this earth, when species before us have been completely eradicated?"

"The experiments we conducted were on the women's hormones and their reproductive functions. I was searching for something we could use, something we could reproduce for our own benefit, but I discovered too many differences. I was ordered to continue with the tests regardless because I had been given a population here to work with separate from the colonies, which are protected from all intervention. We cannot go into that territory."

"But you breached the convention by killing these women," Mulder insisted.

"I know," Eddie replied. "But I was ordered and if I had not done it they would have sent someone else. It is why the other two died. When I realised who you were and that you would be of no use to our tests, and that there were two women still remaining, I decided not to complete the work. I lied and told my supervisor that I had finished. Michael was angry at me for lying and disobeying what he felt was a direct order. You must understand I took great care of the bodies, but when Michael attempted to finish our work he did not."

"How did he do it?" Scully asked. "Telepathy?"

"Hours earlier when they had been asleep," Eddie answered. "At least I suspect that to be the case. I did not know he had done anything until they both bled, and I believe he used a chemical unknown to you to cover his experiments and cause their death."

"Could he have tried to use it on Scully?" Mulder asked.

"If he did it would have no effect," Eddie replied. "If he did and she was fertile she would be dead by now." Mulder chewed on his bottom lip unhappily as Scully's hand slid higher up his thigh. "I am sorry I did not say anything at the time. It was not the place for this lengthy explanation. The fact you described the end result as violent does fit within what I know to be Michael's temper. He was angry at me for disobeying orders, but I did not want you...I knew I would have to tell you this eventually and I did not want to dirty my reputation with you."

"You like me that much huh?" Scully asked dryly, smirking as Eddie chuckled.

"I respect you," he assured her. "And your signal fascinated me for a long time. I am sorry it is gone from you. It was much more beautiful than anybody else's. I think your soul is very special."

"Well I wouldn't swap with anyone," Scully teased lightly, blushing. "So...I believe that you believe that Michael's ignorance and temper contributed to recent events. But you are no closer to finding a cure for your plague?"

"No," he sighed.

"It was my belief that if you were up to anything suspicious it was an attempt to defeat the supersoldiers," she continued. "Is that your goal?"

"It is one of them, yes," he confirmed. "Access to the rest of your planet is high on our agenda."

"So you can destroy it?" Scully asked curtly, raising an eyebrow. "If you're not careful you're going to cause your extinction and ours. And then what? Supersoldiers will roam the planet for all eternity?"

"That's not what I want."

"Why are you so convinced it's the women you should look at?" Mulder asked curiously. "I believe you when you say you have nothing which closely resembles the gender differences in biology and chemistry that we have, but what makes you think that they hold any answers?"

"The supersoldiers, actually," Eddie explained. "We have a man on the inside. He knows a female supersoldier and he tells us experiments with using women in the program have been volatile and since ceased. We believe there is a strength there we could tap into, and inject into the ones that take us in, to keep them alive."

"If you try to make those things more feminine," Scully replied. "I hate to suggest it, but you might find them less successful. If you somehow create a hybrid of your own so that you can use it to breed, you realise you would be injecting human emotion into your receptors. You would be making them more like women here, but you would not have the natural opposite for what you create. Here we have male and female in most of our nature, but you don't have that and neither does the supersoldier program. It might not ensure your survival at all. Do you think it's a chemical you are lacking? Do you have any use for our chemicals?"

"I have tried all the basics. I would appreciate your help actually. Not as a subject but as a scientist. You could bring a fresh perspective to it all."

"A vastly inferior perspective," Scully pointed out.

"Evolution has taken you in a different direction to us. I don't think that makes you inferior."

xxx 

"How can he think it doesn't make us inferior when they just slaughtered half the world to serve their own purpose?" Mulder exclaimed as he lay on his stomach after the discussion with Eddie. Scully was brushing her hair in front of the mirror and shrugged. "It's just hypocritical."

"I think he means well," she sighed. "And I think he is genuinely excited in his role here as a conservationist. He does the tests because he has to, and he can't keep doing them because he's run out of subjects and he's failed, so now it's merely a matter of preservation and looking elsewhere. Who knows, Mulder? Maybe his people will realise we have nothing to offer them and move on."

"Sure, just give us back our planet and take all their sand with them and that's fine," Mulder taunted dryly. "I dunno, I'm still just really pissed off."

"I know," Scully whispered, walking over to him as he sat up and urged her onto his lap. "Are you tired?" she asked. "Should we reset this as our night-time?"

"Sitting under those stars for so long has me believing it," he replied, leaning forward for a cautious kiss on her cheek. He had stayed close to Scully since returning from her examination room to their home, but she had seemed shy and reluctant to move past hugging. "How do you feel about everything he said?" he asked. "About the differences between our lives and his? If he's telling the truth, his life sounds boring."

"I'm sure there are a lot of aliens very content with their lifestyle and unwilling to change," she reasoned. "In every population there are individuals who think outside the square, who push their people toward new discoveries, who change thought, who...strive to examine foreign concepts which fascinate them. Our own history has been filled with such individuals. In a way, that's what we did once."

"I don't think we succeeded."

"I don't know," she whispered. "You helped me discover a few things about this world I had never been open to believing in. You were once as fascinated by the possibility of life outside this planet as Eddie has been about life on this planet. You are not so different."

"He's a scientist. You and he are not so different either."

"He gives me too much credit, Mulder. My soul, my signal, my knowledge is not special."

"How do you know?" he asked. "Maybe your genetic identifier was different because the chip had cured your cancer. Maybe Eddie looked to that as a sign of hope, in the same way we wish on shooting stars. And as for your soul, well, I don't think I need to comment. I'd be jealous too. I'm constantly in awe, and I've got one of my own. You think Eddie's opinion is the norm though?"

"His people probably think of him as the FBI thought of you," Scully suggested. "I think a lot of Eddie's people might find our culture ludicrous and savage, Mulder. Our lives are very untidy. We get our hands dirty, reproduction is messy, and we have complicated personal relationships. I don't know enough about their own lives but I think their lack of knowledge about things like passion and personal space speaks of a group very...detached. And that's probably normal for them, that is their adaptation, but to us it seems, well, detached."

"You think life is messy, huh?" Mulder asked, massaging her hips as she straddled him but sat well back from his pelvis. She cocked her head to the side and teased him with a wide smile.

"Do you forget the amount of blood you were standing in the other day, Mulder?"

"Do you know what is sad?" he asked without answering her question. She stared at him more seriously, reaching for his hands and drawing them from her hips. She laced their fingers together and shook her head.

"What?" she asked gently, flexing her palms against his in an attempt to share his sadness.

"If we become extinct as a species as a result of all this, even if the aliens survive, then our souls will have no more bodies fit for habitation. This could be the end of the road, Scully."

"Why is that sad, Mulder?" she asked with a gentle smile, though she felt a pain in her chest she could only attribute to grief. He shrugged. "You could be with your sister forever," she explained. "We would be free from our bodies and the laws of nature that bind us in them."

"But I 'like' the body," Mulder whinged. Scully laughed loudly as he pouted at her. She removed her hands from his and shoved him playfully in the chest. He did not resist, falling back on the mattress and jiggling his eyebrows suggestively. "Why, Doctor Scully-"

"Shut up," she giggled, crawling over him and bracing herself above him on locked elbows, her long hair tickling his cheeks. Instead of reaching up to tuck it behind her ears for her, Mulder settled his hands on her waist, lightly dragging his fingers up her ribs underneath her shirt, tickling her until she squirmed. "Mulder, stop," she urged amidst laughter. He heard the brief panic in her voice and pulled away instantly, forcing his hands to his side. She sat back on her heels, straddling his waist, and fiddled with the hem of his shirt. "Um," she began, nervous and uncomfortable, her laughter vanished. "I uh, if you don't want to touch me everywhere I'll understand," she whispered. Mulder stared at her with narrowed eyes.

"What?" he asked, confused. Scully rolled her eyes dejectedly and sighed, climbing off him as he sat up. He held her upper arm to stop her getting off the bed and she looked at him through shyly drooping eyelids. "Why wouldn't I want to?"

"I don't know," she mumbled. "I still feel sort of...unclean. The thought of having another man on me, his hands and his mouth, when there's been nobody but you for so long it's, I'm...tainted. I wasn't sure if you felt that way too."

"I am mad that it happened," he replied seriously. "The thought of everything that was done to you repulses me, but 'you' do not. All I want to do is take it all away, Dana. The last thing I want for you to feel is objectified. Do you want me to touch you?"

Scully shut her eyes and nodded. She reached for her shirt and pulled it over her head, tossing it onto the ground. She opened her eyes and saw his drifting over the dark bruises which had settled onto her porcelain white skin. It was the first he had really seen of them. When he had stared down her top in the hospital bed he would have seen mostly shadows. A lot of the bruises had not surfaced until the swelling had receded. He had not seen her naked since.

"What the hell did he do to you?" Mulder asked in surprise, leaning forward to inspect the serious injuries on her breasts with a clinical eye. "I'm surprised he didn't break any skin!"

"I was lucky," she whispered. "It first happened quite soon after you left, so for all that time it would have taken for you to get outside, bury the bodies and return I think he was...mauling me with his hands and mouth. They're not exactly what they were twenty years ago but-"

"Oh, neither am I," Mulder reminded her with a chuckle. "But I think we've held up pretty well for a couple of middle aged humans with very messy lives." He settled his hands on her waist and urged her to lie back on the bed with her head against their pillows. Scully complied, reaching for his hand and again lacing their fingers.

"I love you Mulder," she whispered. He nodded, stretching out beside her. He pressed a kiss to her lips, and then made his way south via the special spots on her neck.

"Tell me if I hurt you," he urged against her collarbone, before licking across a nasty hickey. Nothing about the bruise spoke of passion or love and Mulder's gut wrenched as she writhed underneath him, partially uncomfortable and partially aroused. The discomfort would fade in time, but hopefully her desire for him never would. Messy, he recalled. He loved messy.

xxx 

Mulder looked up from his desk when there was a polite knock on his closed office door. He pressed the button beside him to allow entry and smiled with surprise when Eddie strode in, dressed in his usual jeans and jersey, his hair still wild, his smile still genuine.

"And where have you been all this time?"

"Home with my partner," he replied, aware they had slept for what felt like a long time, then stayed in bed talking and dozing and making out for perhaps a full day, getting up only to eat and use the bathroom, and then they had slept soundly once again. Then Mulder had come to work. They had not done that since they had been reunited in Virginia. He sighed in thought.

"She's not in her office," Eddie explained. "I just came from there."

"She'll be around. She might have taken a break," Mulder answered. He had no idea where Scully was. She had told him she would be at work also.

"So she's okay?" Eddie asked, collapsing his long frame into the chair opposite Mulder's desk. "You guys talked?"

"Yeah," Mulder sighed. "We just needed some time alone to recover from all this, process it. Dana...feels uncomfortable in herself. She might be avoiding you."

"Ah," Eddie hummed. "Is she uh, angry at me?" Mulder shook his head. "Are you?"

"No," he answered. "It's hard to stay angry after you spend a day and a couple of nights in bed with your partner, but I don't suppose you really understand that."

"On an academic level I do," Eddie assured him. "Just not on a personal level. Doesn't mean you can't talk to me about it." Mulder shrugged. Another time, his expression said. "Did you want to shoot some hoops?" he asked. "I really didn't mean to shock you. I don't see why we can't still be friends."

"Do you know what a friend is?" Mulder asked curiously.

"I thought that's what we were before." Mulder grimaced. "Look, I like you both. You're safe here."

"Until you do find a cure and then we can go back where we came from?"

"Mulder I won't find a cure here," Eddie groaned, shaking his head. "I don't know what can help us. It's like your HIV, except it's worse because there's no treatment to extend their lives and no preventative measures. Imagine what you would feel if all the women in the world died the same way Suzanne and Arjeta died, all at once, with no explanation?"

"I can empathise with your situation," Mulder promised in a quiet voice. "I suppose Dana's not the only person feeling a little raw."

"A couple of days in bed with a beautiful woman can do that to you too huh?" Eddie teased, raising his eyebrows in jest. Mulder could not help his chuckle.

"How do you know how to joke?" he asked. Eddie shrugged. "Do you joke as yourselves?"

"Yes, but your sense of humour is different. I studied yours, but I discovered it comes naturally to me. After a while, I didn't need to mimic. We don't laugh either."

"No laughing, no crying, no passionate sex. What 'do' you do?" Mulder asked.

"Everything you do without all the fuss," he summarised. "I happen to think we're missing out, but I can't change what I am or the people who I come from, but I can take advantage of this sweet job I've got myself on planet earth. I could really get used to hanging around."

"Don't you miss home?"

"Nuh," Eddie huffed. "Never really fit in. How about you?" Mulder hummed, remembering what Scully had said. He and Eddie weren't necessarily that different at all.

"The same, I guess," he conceded. Eddie grinned. "So you wanna play ball?"

"Yeah. How is your head?"

"All recovered. I've had a concussion before. I didn't say anything whacked did I?"

"No, just a lot of moanin' and groanin' like you were on your death bed. Hey how come you and Dana aren't married? She's Catholic. I know all about them."

"And you also know enough about our history with work and our experiences that it has never been a priority, and in the end it was too dangerous to have my name associated legally with hers. It would have given away our location to people, supersoldiers, who wanted to harm us. Besides, we don't need a piece of paper to tell us we're married, and nobody's keeping score anymore. Doesn't matter." Eddie hummed thoughtfully. "Why?"

"I don't know. I just wondered. I thought if I asked...that it might be something I should have been expected to know, and that I might give myself away."

"Well you did a good job of fooling us. If Dana hadn't remembered Michael's touch we might never have figured it out."

"I was going to tell you as soon as I realised what Michael must have done. It just got complicated and I had to put it off. Even if Michael hadn't killed those two women, I would have found a good time to tell you. I do want Dana's help. She has been studying our science, I know that, and I hope she can think of something we have yet to try."

"I find it incredible you have a room full of cures for human ailments, and nothing to ensure the survival of your own species."

"It's never been a problem until now. I collected all of those treatments. Impressive, isn't it?"

"You couldn't have maybe given some of them to us ahead of time?"

"And reveal to your world what exactly, that there were aliens studying you, learning your medicines and using their own technology to develop vaccines and treatments which could ease your pain? And how could you pay us, by letting us live on your planet? It was never going to happen. I know enough about humans to know they are selfish and hostile, and they thought they were the top of the food chain for a very long time. It was never my place to interfere with those beliefs, and I could not risk ruining the plans for colonisation."

"A cure was almost handed to Scully once before," Mulder replied. "We think, at least. It was never proven whether it was real. I always thought she had been conned."

"She probably had, but she is a cure in herself, is she not? Evidence that what I have upstairs is real and does work?"

"Yes but it's of no use to us if our world is decimated by your search to the point where we also cannot sustain a population. We need an ecosystem in which to survive, not a desert."

"You have one here," he assured Mulder. "And the human colonies will thrive."

"We didn't tell you the whole truth at the processing centre," Mulder mentioned casually. "We had been travelling with a group who were journeying onto the human colonies. Our friends. We left them in Mexico. Will they be looked after?"

"The colonies run themselves so I assume so, if they make it there," Eddie replied. "I don't know much about them. I'm isolated here and focussed on all the data I've received as a result of our testing process on your northern hemisphere. Before you arrived I was analysing every day. The other humans here all know what has happened to their planet and I think they are just happy to be here; not many lost families."

"No because the way I saw it, everyone was killed unless they were underground or somewhere immune, like further south where the virus wasn't released."

"There has been a lotta bloodshed in the south by the supersoldiers," Eddie sighed. Mulder smirked at him. "What?"

"You keep switching between your slang accent and good grammar. If I hadn't been sitting right across from you the other night, I'd have thought you were a different person."

"I just go with what I'm feeling," Eddie laughed. "When I'm relaxed, I don't talk so much like somebody's who started off learning English from British history. I like this body better. It's loose and chilled and I always have a great time in it."

"Can you appear as a woman?"

"Yeah, but it doesn't feel right." Mulder smirked curiously. "I mean it's a really good way to learn an anatomy completely unfamiliar to you, but no, that's not me man. I like all o' this." He gestured his arms up and down his lanky, muscular body, both of them chuckling. "When we started getting the people here, sometimes I'd change my appearance just to freak them out. So funny. 'Hey, you're new!' and I'd just make shit up about where I was from. Then one day I noticed some of the guys were a bit down, so I turned into this blonde, pornography candy from some things I've seen in my studies, and walked past the window and you should have seen them run to try to see me. 'Where'd she go? Where'd she go? Aw did you see her?' Man I never laughed so hard in all my life! Talk about being ruled by an attraction to the opposite sex! They spent all day searching for this mystery woman just because of her body. Bodies aren't anything special to us, but you should have heard these men. SUCH a pisser!"

"I suppose a scientist has to test his findings," Mulder drawled, doing his best not to laugh. Eddie grinned, nodding lazily.

"Too true. Observation is a huge part of it all. It won't help me do my work, but it does teach me about your world so I can bring my findings back to mine. I'd never say you all are inferior, and I'm havin' the most fun here, but historically...some of you aint so smart!"

"Are your people going to help us intellectually stunted humans fight the supersoldiers?"

"Not until we can expose their weaknesses," Eddie replied. "We know they are moving north in breach of the Convention, but we have not yet finalised something we could use to destroy them. I am meant to be working on that also."

"You're the guru," Mulder mumbled, shrugging. "How far into that project are you?"

"Not as far as I would like. I do not know how long it will take."

"We're not getting any younger here, you know," Mulder sighed, tapping a pencil against his desk. "How old are you?"

"We don't have age like you, but I have tried to estimate based on your time cycle. You would call me old; somewhere around sixty, but in your years I could live well past one hundred, so I'm not really very old. I like this body a lot better than the old dude you met on the island. Much easier to play your sports. We don't get old like that. Very...interesting."

"Oh please," Mulder deadpanned. "Let me be surprised." Eddie laughed.

"Man you got nothing to worry about for a long time. You're spritelier on the court than any other guy here. So come on New York Knicky, what are you waiting for? You chicken?"

"I'll duck home and-" Mulder stopped when his networking screen that overlapped with the small computer on his desk switched itself on. "Ooh, somebody likes me," he whispered, excited. He rarely received network messages. Scully hated using it. Mulder was intrigued as he watched the system log him on. Maybe somebody was trying to make an appointment? Finally!

"I can't believe you two don't use the network," Eddie chuckled at Mulder's innocent awe. "It won't bite you. Everyone uses it."

"I had these friends in America and they always cautioned me about making contact over unsecured lines or shared networks," Mulder mumbled with a smirk, thinking back to the Lone Gunmen, and whether their spirits had stuck around long enough to witness the destruction of their gravesite.

Mulder was surprised when he saw a small picture of Scully appear in the top corner of the screen, her qualifications and location below and her text on the left. She too was tapping a pencil on her desk, waiting, her words already typed to him.

'Mulder it's me. Have you seen Eddie? He left me a message that he was trying to track me down.'

'He's here,' Mulder typed back. 'Nothing urgent. Just concerned he hadn't seen us.' Scully smiled in the little picture. Her hair was pulled back, straight, and her reading glasses were perched on her nose. He could see the collar of her white lab coat. She looked adorable. 'Did I ever tell you I love your cute little research look Scully?'

'Very funny,' she replied, though he saw her laugh and her eyes flit briefly to the camera on her computer. Mulder grinned. She could see him too, after all. 'Can you both come up? I want to show you the samples from Suzanne and Arjeta and get his opinion so I can close the case and maybe he could show me the science he has for his plague.'

'Be right there Doc.'

Mulder looked over at Eddie as he logged off, who was sitting patiently with his large hands clasped.

"Well no basketball yet. You've sucked her in," he declared with a smile. "Doctor Scully requests your appraisal of some samples and information about your plague. This won't put her in danger, will it?"

"Not at all. We are a desperate species, Mulder, and if the cure comes from a human's idea? It will change everything."

xxx 

Eddie smiled as he watched Mulder lead the way into Scully's research lab. Her small frame was bent over a microscope and she waved them in when she heard their footsteps and the soft sliding of the door.

"I think I've identified the presence of this unknown chemical," she explained without looking up. Mulder walked up to her and slid an arm around her back, keeping her close as she stepped to the side and allowed him to peer through. Eddie watched her whisper something in his ear and peck his cheek before he let her go. She stood up straighter and turned towards Eddie, hands on her hips, parting her white lab coat. "I went to see Michael today."

"What?" Mulder exclaimed, spinning away from the microscope and staring at her. "How did you get in?"

"I asked him to let me in and he did," she replied coolly, staring at Eddie. "You didn't tell me he was there voluntarily. I told him that when he was ready to stop sulking and grovelling and come back up he could."

"You think he was ready for that?" Eddie asked curiously. Scully shrugged.

"Punishing himself won't make him understand. I told him some things, and he's got a lot to learn. He seemed almost childlike in his remorse."

"I was just telling Mulder that if we put our ages on your calendar I am what you call 'middle-aged', perhaps around sixty years. I put myself in a body younger because I am comparatively younger than that. Michael's put himself in a body that is older."

"Oh, really," Mulder smirked. "And how old is the little tyke? Twelve?"

"Seventeen, maybe, around there," Eddie replied. "We don't really keep track of birth dates as you all do. It's not needed to help identify us."

"He's a teenager?" Mulder exclaimed. "And his father put him in charge?"

"It's been done in your history too," Eddie chuckled. "You know I'm not happy, but I gotta live with the situation I'm put in. He is above me socially. Now you understand when I said this world is really new to him, and he got his...boundaries skewed. What did you tell him?"

"Among other things, I told him we needed his help," Scully answered seriously. "And as a scientist I wanted to get to know him and his world, but I told him as a woman if he ever touched me again I'd put my scalpel into the back of his neck so fast he wouldn't see death coming, and if he killed me first then Mulder would know exactly what to do 'avenge me'."

"You managed that with a straight face?" Mulder teased. She smirked, nodding.

"Oh, I scared him. I also told him how I felt. I don't think he understood what Eddie had told him, or he didn't want to, when I began; the fact he's a stubborn adolescent doesn't surprise me after speaking to him as himself, when he wasn't trying to be somebody he wasn't. He is not as mature as us, he is not as knowledgeable about our lives, and he does believe himself to have a certain importance or standing in his own world that perhaps he needs first to earn on merit. I told him he should be himself and I assured him he can help us if he wanted to, or he could stay down there and sulk. Until today he had never seen a woman cry and I think now that he has, he does believe there are lessons in this world he could learn from."

"Are you okay?" Mulder asked gently. Scully blushed, nodding.

"Fine," she assured him. "I let him see. Eddie, I want to help you, if you can help us. I don't want this to be the way life ends for either of our worlds. Mass extinction is not an option."


End file.
